Investigate, April 2007 by Investigate Magazine

INVESTIGATE

April 2007:

NZ Oil Reserves • Biofuel • Iranian Nuclear Threat • Suicide

Issue 75

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Volume 7, Issue 75, April 2007

FEATURES BLACK GOLD, NZ TEA, OIL, THAT IS

The mystery of whether New Zealand is sitting on top of a massive oilfield off the South Island coast is about to be solved. With exploration tenders closing in early April, IAN WISHART reports on the legend of the Great South Basin, the Hunt brothers, a secret “gusher”, and oil reserves that may rival Iraq’s

THE NEXT ‘FASTEST INDIAN’

THE IRANIAN THREAT TO NZ

26 32

Kiwi inventor Steve Ryan claims he’s ready to enter a red Corvette in the world’s richest car race, powered only by water. LAURA WILSON examines the unlikely story of Ryan’s search for the ultimate alternative fuel

The looming crisis of Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons technology is likely to top the agenda when Helen Clark meets President Bush at the White House this month. IAN WISHART analyses the threat to New Zealand’s economy that Iran could pose if it becomes nuclear-armed

SEEKING HOPE

WORLDBRIEF: THE GOAT STORMS

Suicide has become almost a national sport in New Zealand – more than double the rate of many third world countries. DANIELLE MURRAY reports on the problem

Who’d have thought that cheap Chinese cashmere garments could be causing global dust storms and creating a pollution crisis around the world: EVAN OSNOS reports

Cover: Herald/Presspix

EDITORIAL AND OPINION Volume 7, issue 75, ISSN 1175-1290

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INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007,

FOCAL POINT

EDITORIAL

Time to give juries the facts

n all the fallout from the police rape trials, perhaps the biggest issue needing addressing is the thorny question of whether juries should be made aware of prior convictions. Before you turn the page, thinking you’ve heard all this, spare me a moment because I doubt you’ve heard this particular line of reasoning. The principle of keeping previous criminal activity secret was to ensure that the criminal got a “fair” trial, that guilt or innocence was decided on the “facts” of the present case alone. There are many circumstances where such a protection works well. On the issue of a bank robbery, where offender A is caught on a CCTV camera and additionally eyeballed by a dozen witnesses in the bank, the question of guilt or innocence can be left entirely to the evidence in that par“If offenders know that in future ticular case – the fact that their pasts will be trotted out for offender A might have a rap sheet as long as your arm is the jury to know, where relevant, irrelevant to the “facts” of it may well be a deterrent factor” the latest robbery. However (and it is a big ‘however’), the justification for maintaining this separation of offender from their past deeds becomes murkier in crimes of morality, crimes that rely much more on character. And rape is one of those. After all, most rapes do not have witnesses and certainly don’t take part in crowded banks in front of security cameras. Rape, by its nature, often comes down to a “he said/she said” case where the characters of each party must be tested so the jury can determine which is the most credible. In the case of rape, not only can a strong justification be made for opening up the past of the offender to scrutiny, I believe it must be done, in the interests of a fair trial. Here’s why: For decades, rapists have been able to hide behind this shield, whereby their own past cannot be touched but their lawyers have free rein to delve into every sexual secret of the rape victim, haul in bitter old boyfriends and generally shred the credibility of complainants left, right and centre. Defence lawyers justify this as “testing the credibility of the witness”. But why is effectively re-raping the victim on the witness stand OK, but exposing the sexual crimes of the offender not OK? Surely if this is a test of the credibility of both parties, then both should be open to the same scrutiny? I am not one of those who argues that women should

, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007

be allowed to make virtually anonymous rape complaints and be shielded from all questioning, because that would swing the pendulum too far the other way. But I firmly believe that what’s sauce for the goose is equally so for the accused gander. In ages past, when you were tried by a jury of your peers, your peers knew you. They knew the crimes you’d gotten up to, and could take it all into account. It is only since the rise of the modern nation-state and the vast anonymity of large cities that jury trials have suddenly been disconnected from context. Defence and civil rights lawyers have taken advantage of this disconnect, in New Zealand at least, to erect this magic “wall of separation between reality and justice”, so that the latter is often meted out without reference to the former. I believe that an abandonment of the restriction of revealing past convictions could work extremely well in any case where there is a conflict of credibility and where defence lawyers are exercising their “right” to trash a witness’ reputation while the witness has no right to trash back. I believe that if a defence lawyer wants to go down the line of violating a woman again, then he and his client should be ready for a little bit of the same. I believe that past criminal convictions for rape, sexual offending or the like are directly relevant when a defence lawyer is effectively calling a witness a “slut” whilst proclaiming the lily-white personae of his client. Those convictions are real. They are matters of historical fact and public record. It is only a quirk of modern cities that most people will be unaware of them. Furthermore, if offenders know that in future their pasts will be trotted out for the jury to know, where relevant, it may well be a deterrent factor. If they can no longer shelter behind their lawyer’s metaphorical skirts, if their pasts will indeed finally come back to haunt them during the determination of guilt or innocence, then maybe they’ll think twice about taking the risk in the first place. It is time to restore some “justice” to our justice system.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007,

VOX POPULI

COMMUNIQUES THE HARDENING OF MODERATES

I was not at all surprised at the content of your feature article. When I moved to a small town in New Zealand, I befriended a Muslim woman and her family (she was very conspicuous with her headscarf in a town which up until a year ago had only a handful of Muslims). They had lived in NZ for a number of years and felt a little ostracised, but were not bitter or angry people. I felt deep compassion for her. The two families often visited each other’s homes, sharing a meal (I always respected their dietary requirements). One evening they stayed longer than expected and requested our permission to say their prayers on the carpet in our hallway facing east, as they did not have enough time to get back home to do it. We waited in the lounge and prayed for their salvation until they rejoined us. They regarded themselves as peaceloving Muslims who welcomed the respect and friendship shown by some Christians towards them. We got the younger son involved in some after school activities with my son who was his age. The mother often told me that she would love her older son to marry a girl like my daughter (both Uni students). We had many deep conversations about Isa (Jesus) and godly values. I sensed a hunger in her for a deeper knowledge of God, a desire to have a more personal relationship as we did. We prayed fervently for this family to discover such a personal relationship with Jesus. Then her husband moved to a city because of a better job. He came home on weekends. It took a few months to find a buyer for their home and follow her husband. In that time we noticed a change in the father and younger son, probably because the father was worshipping in a mosque again for the first time in years. They became more staunch and were less friendly towards us. In fact by the time the family moved to the city, my son made the remark that it would not surprise him to open the newspaper one day and discover that this boy had become New Zealand’s first suicide bomber. My friend was taking strain trying to maintain our friendship when her husband was obviously pressuring her to put distance between us. Once she moved it became obvious that she had bought into the teaching at their local mosque. She began sending me material

10, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007

that was anti-America and Anti-Israel. When I remonstrated with her about her claim that Islam was a peaceloving, tolerant religion, the tone of her emails became more and more disturbing. Eventually after six months there she sent me video clip entitled “God burn America and Israel”. I was so shocked that I was speechless. I did not write back because I did not know how to handle this new extremism in her. I have not heard from her since (another six months). My conclusion is that this mosque is wasting no time in teaching fanatical, radical, dangerous doctrines that threaten the long term peaceful co-existence of Muslims and non-Muslims in this country. I’m quite sure this mosque would not be operating in isolation. There is a stupendous amount of money available in oil-rich Middle Eastern countries to advance the cause of Islam. I come from Africa where this money is put to very good use building schools and hospitals and providing food and water, BUT only for those who will convert to Islam FIRST. There is no altruism in Islam as there is in Christianity. It is not a religion of endless love and generosity, regardless of the recipient’s response to the faith of the donor. In Africa if you want to accept Muslim money, the message is very clear, you either convert or we will stand here and watch you die of hunger, thirst and disease. Mercy towards a non-Muslim is a foreign concept. I do pray for greater wisdom and a desire for truth in the hearts of our politicians. If they don’t wake up now they will watch wide-eyed as a Muslim Party rises up to contest the next election (The people in the state of Victoria may have laughed at the thought two years ago, but who is laughing now?) Name and address supplied, via email

A MUSLIM PROPAGANDIST WRITES

Can I just check that I have got my facts right regarding the seventeen page column in the March issue, “Helen Hoodwinked...” You note a breach of border security. I gather that some visitors have been here. What was the breach? Has a law been broken? I see that you have used Wikipedia and a number of websites in the public domain yet you refer to secret and private information from other sources, none of which

are noted. How many sources did you have to reach through subterfuge and infiltration and undercover methods? It seems that most of the information was readily and available (and substantially out of date). Most of the organisations, the mosques and resource centres, have mailing lists so that news of visiting speakers can reach the subscribers. Your fears may be allayed if you put yourself in the loop. You will find there is not a very serious vetting process as the webmasters and admin people are generally working long hours in paid employment and have families as well. lectures and workshops are free, a lot of the literature is free and there’s no cost to join any of the little associated libraries. So it also begs the question how can a tour be “sell out” if everyone who is there came for free and no one was excluded? It appears that only two people were willing to talk to you: Peter Lineham and Javed Khan. Is that so? Would you like more contacts so that your magazine can be respected as a truly investigative periodical? As an aside to your main points you repeat the commonly held misconceptions about the cloth that might be on their heads. Your writing is weakened when errors are slipped in with facts. Have you spoken with any Muslim women regarding their clothing? “Khalifah” is also given a very limited explanation that will strike the desired attribute of fear into the hearts of your loyal readers. Do you need a translator with skills in Arabic to assist you in grasping some of the nuances of the language? Did you attend any lectures, workshops or training camps or has BBC footage from other parts of the world been sufficient for you to make your projections into these parts of the world? What is the scandal in saying, however poor your English might be, that if you have unprotected sex you run the risk of AIDS? You put this message in a box on p.23 Are you worried about the “Allah punishes them” or are you questioning the logic: that sex is a culprit in the spread of AIDs? Mohammad Ali is a former boxer, a great barista in Mangere bridge, a tax consultant and philanthropist in Mt. Roskill and thousands of other men no doubt share this very popular name: John Smith has got it easy in comparison. On p.36 you suggest that a “similar name” is enough for us to pass judgement. Are you sure you mean that? Touching on the subject of suicide, you did not examine any of the currently available statistics in direct suicides and the indirect suicides of drunk driving and smoking. It would have been good if Investigate had been able to present the numbers of suicides by Muslims and non Muslims, and which ones not only dispatched the protagonist but took out some by-standers. This information will surely galvanise the population: when facts are exposed in such succinct clarity there is no debate. Likewise an examination of Xtreme Sport, Xtreme Fashions (piercings, tattoos, physical mutilation that is part of Kiwi Youth Culture), Xtreme Music all deserve space in your magazine as we look at how our pastoral lifestyle is being eroded by international forces: most of which can promulgate their wares and values on either of the two free channels broadcast live into every New Zealand home that wants it. Anyway, I thank you for your time in responding to these matters. I can suspend my judgement just a little longer in anticipation of your reply, Fiona Lovatt-Davis

EDITOR RESPONDS:

Dear Fiona, I’ ll respond to your most relevant points, but I should begin by declaring something that you did not: you are a former Northland primary school principal who has converted to Islam, now teaching at an Islamic school for girls in Auckland, and you also front a Muslim PR group called “Media Mind” whose role is to change the way the media perceives Islam. First main point, border security: we believe, and probably most New Zealanders do, that any border security mechanism that allows individuals into the country from organizations named internationally as supporters of terrorism is not “border security” in the usually understood sense of the term. Second point, sources and subterfuge: No subterfuge was used by Investigate. Our sources included UN security reports, court transcripts and intelligence. All are documented and all are reliable. To suggest that it was “out of date” is rubbish – some of these people were here only a few months ago. The documented evidence against Bilal Philips and some of the others is far stronger than the evidence against Ahmed Zaoui. Third point, Khalifah: I am very familiar with the concepts of Khilafah, Khalifah and Wahhabi doctrine in general. I am on a Wahhabi mailing list and have been for years – possibly longer than you have been a Muslim. Readers interested in background can find some pieces written by Muslim authors at www.thebriefingroom. com, and click on the “Islamofascism” category. Fourth point, is BBC footage from overseas relevant to NZ?: Answer, as a former school principal I know you must be pulling my leg in faux seriousness. The representatives and lecturers from WAMY and some of these other organizations flew in from Saudi Arabia where they are headquartered. WAMY is still effectively run by the bin Laden family out of Saudi Arabia. Are you seriously expecting New Zealanders to believe that your honoured guests somehow leave their politics behind them, when they don’t anywhere else? As we said in the article, we have no details of what was discussed here by any speakers, but the lecture titles in some cases were similar or the same as lectures they hold in other countries (like Australia) and on the internet, and those lectures were extremist Wahhabi rubbish. Fifth point, social conservatism: If you’ve ever paid attention to Investigate you will know we have extensively covered issues from a socially conservative perspective, many of the same issues Islam is concerned with. On the other hand, you won’t catch this magazine advocating stoning people to death, or killing the Jews, which some of the “guests” invited here advocate internationally. Sixth point, suicide bombing: Again, you are not seriously trying to equate suicide rates in the West, caused by mental illness and/or social issues, with deliberate suicide bombings in order to gain direct access to 72 virgins? It is one thing to murder yourself, it is entirely another to deliberately target innocent civilians, including women and children, because your Islamic schools in Britain, Europe and the Middle East are brainwashing kids to believe in martyrdom and killing Jews. I hope the NZ schools are not going down this track, because your counterparts in England are. Remaining points: You appear to have either deliberately or mistakenly quoted snippets out of context, such as your reference to p36, or the claim that we have secret information. Go back and read the article more carefully.

WITH BLINKERS ON

There are three things driving the bourgeoning Islamic recrudes-

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 11

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cence world wide: God, Oil and Money. All are the products of Man alone in his insatiable desire for power. The Islam rampage is on a declared course to take over the world, not by any command from any God but by greed, cruelty, bigotry, defilement and brainwashing, all for those only who have the most to gain. They have no place in the society of New Zealand and the sooner this country is rid of them all the better. We will never be rid of them while our Government continues to paint them as disciples of peace. Helen’s “hijab” must have had blinkers attached. Well done Investigate. Winstone J Norfolk, Hamilton

S59 DEBATE

When such Islamic preachers visit NZ, their lectures are open for all to attend, Muslims or not. Nobody will prevent you from entering a lecture room to listen, and no one will prevent you from entering a mosque to listen. So for people who believe this article and for the writer, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is and go to every lecture that gets held by Islamic preachers in NZ if you are claiming they spread hatred without providing sufficient proof. Posted by H.A. on TBR.cc

What is happening to NZ democracy? A Green list MP, with no electorate accountability, is trying to legislate how NZ parents raise their children based on her ideology. I would expect a pile of well-documented, unbiased research and solid facts before such a radical, unwanted intrusion into families was attempted with removing Section 59. Raising kids is reality, not ideology, as Dr Spock realised too late. A small minority is mounting a clever, well-oiled campaign against good parents, with support from well-funded organisations whose international head offices are based out of New Zealand. Polls consistently show that 70 to 90% of NZers do not want this legislation so why are Labour electorate MP’s allowing their consciences to be dictated to by their Party and not giving a toss about the concerns of the electorate who they should be representing? Foisting on voters a legislation that they do not want is dictatorship – not democracy. This Bill will be a failure as soon as one darling, loved child suffers incredible, unnecessary emotional distress by being removed from a good family – just because smacking is one of the parenting tools used occasionally. Jennie Mckeown, Kaukapakapa

EDITOR RESPONDS:

FOOD MILES

YOU’RE WELCOME TO VISIT

The article points out that we don’t know what was said in the “ intensive courses” that were run. However, it also points out that whatever was preached is likely to have been relatively consistent with the beliefs Yasin, Philips, Wahaj and Ibrahim have already publicly espoused overseas. In particular, Yasin’s hate-speech has been well documented in Australia. Additionally, we did check out the literature mosques were offering their members which include publications by these men and Tareq Sweidan, who also preaches hatred against Jews and gays. Further, as already pointed out, the story was not limited to individuals but to organisations known to be closely linked to terror groups like al Qa’ ida, such as the World Assembly of Muslim Youth and the Muslim World League, both of which have been heavily involved in the NZ mosques. Is it OK if non-Muslims attend the Muslim youth camps, as per your invitation? Finally, the bottom line from all of these preachers is that Islam must not be corrupted by the West, and true Muslims must distance themselves socially from the culture they live with. Yasin has said, “There is no such thing as a Muslim having a nonMuslim friend”. I respect the desire of Muslims not to be corrupted by the West, but that position is mutually incompatible with living in the West. Why emigrate here if the real desire is religious apartheid, a ‘state within a state’?

A TROJAN HORSE

Thank you for sending us our first copy of your magazine. Your 18 page Special Report, together with the attached email makes compelling reading. Add to the mix Mark Steyn’s book, America Alone and I see quite clearly that the classic Islamic ‘Trojan Horse ‘ is now here in NZ. To be or not to be; that is THE question! Barry Copp, via email

The European protectionist “food miles” philosophy could give Helen Clark another opportunity to steal a march on the National Party. It would also give her a chance to get rid of the now embarrassing anti-nuclear legislation. You see the Europeans are (disingenuously) pointing to fossil fuel consumption occasioned as we ship our products around the globe; but a bold move by Labour could see New Zealand into a new era of shipping using nuclear powered freighters. We could then shore up CER by buying the fuel from her best friend John Howard. If we were really smart, we could pay for the nuclear fuel with shipments of fresh water. Hugh Webb, Hamilton

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

I argued in a recent article that the book awards for children should be abolished. Traditionally, because of the respect naturally granted to a work that apparently must have excelled, parents felt they could trust books heavily promoted by publishers, librarians and teachers. The books that once won awards are among those most loved from our own childhood and still endure for our children and children’s children to read -as great literature does. But trust in the awards has gone. Both the Pulitzer Prize and The Booker, for example – long politicized – have been brought into disrepute and political contamination has leached down. The children’s book awards here, as much as overseas, can no longer be trusted. Even the once prestigious Newbery Medal this year attracted the following comment by a listed author. “When you get right down to it, the Newbery award really doesn’t have much to do with children. By and large, children don’t read the books that win – in fact, most sell terribly before the award. Most of the readership for Newbery books is adults, which isn’t surprising considering the content. Children just don’t get all that revved up about doom and gloom stuff unless you put a spin on it like Daniel Handler did with the Unfortunate Series of

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 13

Events books. There was no way he was going to win a Newbery.” Here’s an extract from a reviewer of this year’s award winner – for more details, check out the website below. “A Finnish alcoholic sits in a park next to the sandbox of a Swedish suburban apartment house. Empty beer cans lie around him, and in his plastic bag he has more beverage containers that are still unopened. “The trash containers are overflowing, and the building’s walls are covered by graffiti. The balconies of immigrants’ apartments are bulging with satellite antennas. “The sight is a familiar one in Swedish suburbs. This time, however, the context is that of a new story book for children. I just read it to my two-year-old daughter.” – http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=1&pid=522283&agid=2 Yes – well don’t call us – we’ll call you…UC Publishing, too, is typical in currently seeking submissions from Australian authors stressing politically correct themes for child readers – e.g. multiculturalism and environmental issues – above all, children’s books that “tackle an issue”. The present scandal is that so many supposedly children’s books, as with the sinister and bleak Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, are not appropriate for children – though they’ve been widely promoted as such by eager librarians and teachers. Only later, in the face of criticism, did Pullman claim they weren’t really written for children at all. Really?

No wonder that special time out, the merciful and magic period of childhood has been ruined for so many, with the intrusion of dismaying, troublesome and threatening adult concerns encompassed by that term “social realism.” Your correspondent Wayne Mills resorts to the usual namecalling – “querulous,” “outdated” “disgruntled author” – so typical of what passes for debate when the interests of the literary cliques in this country are threatened. Mills “authoritatively informs” me of facts I’d already mentioned. Arguably, he’s part of the problem of too many adults coming between what was once simply a good writer and an interested child reader. Superfluous adults have colonized and can become almost parasitic in this area of children’s “ literature”. The adventures of the mind – imaginative fiction and adventure stories – are the real tales for children. We don’t now see many of these, with many children’s authors’ re-writing others’ original tales, reinterpreting them in a politically correct, contemporary setting, or ransacking diaries, etc. for inspiration. However, what’s called fantasy writing is children’s preferred reading. Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree series bewitched children – so naturally she was banned by the usual in-groups that have so long decided what is best for children – while too many children walked away from the books recommended to them. The children’s book awards in this country, for example, have the young readers’ choice confined to books the judges have already chosen! Mills himself concedes social realism is not popular with children – then claims in the usual jargon that it “assists children in making sense of their world”. In other words, depressing, often crudely written, politically motivated themes – supposedly teaching children how to cope with the problems that authors are inappropriately inflicting on them – have become the “we-knowwhat’s-best-for you” affliction on our young, who just want a good story – not dismaying, second-rate and disturbing reading. Mill’s endorsement of “peer review” is superficial thinking. Peer review by mediocre writers in essence competing with better writers “reviewed” for grants and awards is corruptible. He’s careless with his facts: I made no reference to the absurd The Bone People as a children’s book. I couldn’t possibly comment on every great children’s author in one article, and in mentioning the wonderful, classic children’s stories still available, I was pointing out that these will save many young readers who would understandably be turned off reading by the over-hyped material foisted off on them – and quite wrongly called “literature”. Wayne Mills should also note that a children’s book is not a novel. This term is now constantly mis-used. Is this because it gives those adults keen on propagandizing children an excuse to argue that the inappropriate intrusions in some quite pernicious “children’s” books today are legitimate? Amy Brooke, Nelson

DROP US A LINE Letters to the editor can be posted to: PO Box 302188, North Harbour, North Shore 0751, or emailed to: editorial@investigatemagazine.com

14, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007

The most politically incorrect book ever published in NZ!

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SIMPLY DEVINE

MIRANDA DEVINE Last one out, turn off the lights

ou know Australia has lost its mind on the green front when the conservative Howard Government starts emulating the communist dictatorship of Cuba. Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s plan, foisted without warning on the nation last month, to ban incandescent light bulbs from 2010 and force us to replace them with more energyefficient fluorescent ones, was hailed almost unanimously around the world as a bright idea. While the Government billed the switch as a world first the Associated Press soon pointed out that Cuba’s dictator Fidel Castro launched a similar program two years ago to make citizens swap incandescent bulbs for fluorescents. His protege, Venezuela’s socialist president Hugo “In a stroke of political brilliance, Chavez, soon followed suit. You might say Turnbull, the entire cost of the light bulb Castro and Chavez are the extravaganza is to be borne three amigos of the climate by individual consumers, while change nanny state. But at Turnbull gets the kudos” least the communists gave fluorescent bulbs away for free. In Australia we are expected to pay six times more for the new bulbs, as well as for any new fittings. In Cuba, Castro has enforced his light bulb giveaway by using thousands of students, euphemistically called “social workers”, to enter people’s homes, whether they like it or not, and change the bulbs. At the same time, they take an inventory of electrical appliances in the home. Now there’s an idea. This is not to say that encouraging Australians to replace their 135 million incandescent light bulbs with more energy efficient lights is not worthwhile. It’s just that we should have a choice about it. The Government could achieve a similar result by offering incentives such as free bulbs or rebates, in much the same way that the NSW Government has given $150 rebates for water-efficient, four-star-rated washing machines. Instead, in a stroke of political brilliance, the entire cost of the light bulb extravaganza is to be borne by individual consumers, while Turnbull gets the kudos. The advantage of fluoro bulbs is they use 25 per cent less electricity than incandescents, which convert most energy input into heat. But while the technology has improved, with new “warmer colours” offered as alternatives to the institutional cool blue, fluorescent light still

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seems less pleasant. Even “warmer” globes have a clinical, unearthly quality. Maybe it’s psychological. Maybe it’s a primal hangover from our days in the cave when the flickering flames of a hot fire kept gremlins at bay. Maybe we’ll get used to the new regime. But it’s worth noting psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, a member of the advisory committee for the Government’s Boys’ Education Lighthouse Schools Program in 2003, has advocated the removal of fluorescent lighting in classrooms after studies showed its flickering nature reduced boys’ ability to learn and concentrate, especially if they have autism or attention deficit hyperactive disorder. Interior designers and vain women have always known that skin looks better under the warm glow of an incandescent bulb. And since dimmer switches can’t be used on most fluorescents, there goes the mood lighting. The Government boasts that banning incandescents will cut Australia’s emissions by “as much as” 800,000 tonnes a year by 2012. That is a reduction of just 0.14 per cent. And even deep green New Zealand is warning of problems ranging from the incompatibility of light fittings to the safe disposal of toxic mercury contained in fluorescent bulbs. But there are less painful ways to reduce household gas emissions, which account for about six tonnes per household per year. According to the Australian Greenhouse Office, lighting accounts for just 5 per cent of household greenhouse-gas emissions, clothes washing and drying accounts for 2 per cent, cooking 3 per cent, fridge/freezer 9 per cent, home heating and cooling 11 per cent, electronic and other appliances 15 per cent, water heating 16 per cent and travel a whopping 34 per cent. The AGO points out that each household could save more than two tonnes of greenhouse gas by buying a new efficient fridge, 1.5 tonnes by using gas to heat hot water. Using cold water to wash clothes saves almost half a tonne a year. But every litre of petrol saved cuts greenhouse-gas emissions by 2.8 kilograms. So what kind of hypocrisy is there in a government that bans incandescent light bulbs while subsidising people who drive fuel-guzzling, greenhouse gas-emitting, giant four-wheel-drives? With a 5 per cent import tariff on four-wheel-drives, compared with a 10 per cent tariff on other cars, the Government is encouraging us to drive vehicles that are the worst greenhouse offenders of all. Work that out.

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STRAIGHT TALK

MARK STEYN

We don’t see the science of global warming

ur Thought For The Week comes from The Boston Globe’s Ellen Goodman: “I would like to say we’re at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.” That would be yours truly: the climate holocaust denier. I wrote last month about “global warming,” or “cooling,” or “climate change,” or (the latest term) “climate disruption” – for those parts of the world where the climate isn’t really changing but you get an occasional blip: a warm day in winter or a flurry of snow in late April, or (for British readers) a summer’s “In the course of the 20th day where it rockets up to and cloudy instead of century, the planet’s temperature 12º being 14º and drizzling. As supposedly increased by 0.7 a result of my climate holodegrees Celsius, which is caust denial, I received a ton of letters along the lines a smidgeonette over one of this one:

degree Fahrenheit”

“Your piece gave most of my students, most of whom are conservative, a laugh. A journalist’s word against six years of peerreviewed research conducted by world authorities on the subject. “But, as one my student’s [sic] put it: ‘Steyn’s piece could prove valuable: We often run out of toilet paper here.’ “How is it that you can make a living writing what you do is a wonder. But then, the vulgar wish to be deceived, after all. “Steve Pierson, Professor of English.”

Presumably Professor Pierson signs himself “Professor of English” to establish his credentials for opining on how I can make a living writing. To be honest, I’m flattered to know I’m being discussed at Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, N.Y.: Did I displace Shakespeare? Or Maya Angelou? Or the class where you learn not to put an apostrophe in noun plurals? Has Professor Pierson’s judgment of my writing also been peer-reviewed by world authorities? Not all of us are quite so hung up on credentialization. But, if you are, you might want to read the December issue of The Journal Of Atmospheric And Solar-Terrestrial Physics in which Cornelis de Jager of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and Ilya Usoskin of the Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory in

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Finland test the validity of two current hypotheses on the dependence of climate change on solar energy – the first being that variations in the tropospheric temperature are caused directly by changes of the solar radiance (total or spectral), the other that cosmic ray fluctuations, caused by the solar/heliospheric modulation, affect the climate via cloud formation. The Finn and the Dutch guy from the A-list institutions with the fancypants monikers writing in the peer-reviewed journal conclude that the former is more likely – that tropospheric temperatures are more likely affected by variations in the UV radiation flux rather than by those in the CR flux. Are you thinking maybe it’s time to turn over the page to the Anna Nicole Smith “A life in pictures” double spread? Well, that’s my point. Most of us aren’t reading the science, or even a précis of the science. We’re just reading a constant din from the press that “the science is settled”, and therefore we no longer need to think about it: the thinking has been done for us. Last month’s U.N. IPCC “report”, for example, is not the report, but a political summary thereof. As David Warren wrote in The Ottawa Citizen: “Note that the IPCC report’s conclusions were issued first, and the supporting research is now promised for several months from now. What does that tell you?” Indeed. However, when you do read the actual science, you quickly appreciate that it’s not by any means “settled” – that there all kinds of variables. To quote the Finnish-Dutch bigshots: “There is general agreement that variations in the global (or hemispheric) tropospheric temperature are, at least partly, related to those in solar activity (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Solanki and Krikova, 2003; Usoskin et al., 2005; Kilcik, 2005).” Therefore: “Variations of the mean tropospheric temperature must include stratosphere-troposphere interaction.” However: “A detailed mechanism effectively transferring stratospheric heating into the troposphere is yet not clear.” Whoa, whoa, come back. There’s no point skipping ahead: The illustrated excerpt on page D27 from Roger Ebert’s Anthology of Great Lesbian Movie Scenes was swiped by the delivery boy. The thing is there are still huge disagreements about the climate change that’s already taken place: in Ellen Goodman Holocaust terms (and remember this is her analogy, not mine), it’s as if we knew a lot

of people died but still had no idea who or what killed them. For example: increased monsoon activity off the central west coast of India in the wake of the Spörer and Maunder Minima. Been following that one? The record of experts in this field – or, at any rate, the record of absolutist experts in this field – is not encouraging. Just to cite corporate masters at The New York Times Company, here (from Christopher C. Horner’s rollicking new book The Politically Incorrect Guide To Global Warming) is the Times’ shifting position on the issue: “MacMillan Reports Signs Of New Ice Age” (Sept. 18, 1924) “America In Longest Warm Spell Since 1776: Temperature Line Records A 25-Year Rise” (March 27, 1933) “Major Cooling Widely Considered To Be Inevitable (May 21, 1975) “Past Hot Times Hold Few Reasons To Relax About Global Warming” (Dec. 27, 2005) “Climate change” isn’t like predicting Italian coalition politics. There are only two options, so, whichever one predicts, one has a 50 percent chance of being right. The planet will always be either warming or cooling. By now, you’re probably scoffing: oh, come on, Steyn, what kind of sophisticated analysis is that? It doesn’t just go up or down, it could sorta more-or-less stay pretty much where it is. Very true. In the course of the 20th century, the planet’s temperature supposedly increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius, which (for

those of you who want it to sound scarier) is a smidgeonette over one degree Fahrenheit. Is that kinda sorta staying the same or is it a dramatic warming trend? And is nought-point-seven of an uptick worth wrecking the global economy over? Sure, say John Kerry and Al Gore, suddenly retrospectively hot for Kyoto ratification. But, had America and Australia signed on to Kyoto, and had Canada and Europe complied with it instead of just pretending to, by 2050 the treaty would have reduced global warming by 0.07 C – a figure that would be statistically undetectable within annual climate variation. And, in return for this meaningless gesture, American GDP in 2010 would be lower by $97 billion to $397 billion – and those are the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s somewhat optimistic models. And now Jerry Mahlman of the National Center for Atmospheric Research says “it might take another 30 Kyotos” to halt global warming. 30 x $397 billion is ... er, too many zeroes for my calculator. So, faced with a degree rise in temperature, we could destroy the planet’s economy, technology, communications and prosperity. And ruin the lives of millions of people. Or we could do what man does best: adapt. You do the math. Mark Steyn is a syndicated columnist and the author of the New York Times best seller America Alone: The End Of The World As We Know It. © Mark Steyn, 2006

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EYES RIGHT

RICHARD PROSSER Profits of dumb

hicken Little, so the story goes, was out in the woods one day, when an acorn fell on her head. Convinced that the sky was falling, Chicken Little ran off to warn the King. On the way, as we all know, she collected a number of her friends, who, upon hearing the story, became likewise immediately convinced of the imminent collapse of the sky, and who undertook to accompany her on her mission to convey the awful news to the aforementioned monarch. As history records, Chicken Little and her assembled fowl (Henny Penny, Ducky Lucky, Goosey Loosey, and Turkey Lurky) eventually met up with Foxy Loxy, who, not being a bird brain himself, cottoned on swiftly to the reality that the sky was not, “Creating an irrational fear in the in fact, about to impose minds of the proletariat, of some its presence upon them; but that if the feathered fictitious ailment or impending fools of his new acquaindisaster, and then selling them tance believed it was, then there might be a buck to the remedy, has been a standard be made, or at least a meal marketing ploy for centuries” to be had. Offering his services as a guide, Foxy Loxy led Chicken Little and Company not to the King via his promised shortcut, but instead to his own lair, wherein he proceeded to dispatch and consume them at his leisure. The moral of the story: if you’re stupid enough to believe something ridiculous, don’t be surprised if somebody else decides to exploit your stupidity for their own gain. Human history is littered with examples of mass foolishness and subsequent expensive solutions to non-existent problems. Creating an irrational fear in the minds of the proletariat, of some fictitious ailment or impending disaster, and then selling them the remedy, has been a standard marketing ploy for centuries. From snake oil, to water fluoridation, to tinfoil hats and mass inoculations and antibacterial soap, we’ve been sold them all. Governments, too, have been in on the act, ensuring their ongoing support by continually rescuing grateful voters from imaginary calamities or crises of their own creation. It is apparent that there exists, somewhere in the human psyche, a primal need to believe that the worst is about to happen; and a steadfast desire to hold on to this belief, once attained, in spite of all rational argument and physi-

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cal evidence to the contrary. Over time, the cynical and the manipulative have learned to take advantage of this trait of the gullible and the educationally challenged, by offering a salvation which, once proffered, will be seized upon and held with the same fervour and conviction as was the original perceived threat. This might be funny were it not for two disturbing trends. The first is that, in recent years, scientifically ignorant but egotistically self-important individuals and organisations within Governments, who craft and implement responses to perceived situations, and within the media, who disseminate such information, have expanded and accelerated the process of Alarmism to the point where it now dominates human consciousness and activity at a level not seen since the witch-hunts and Devil-fear of the Middle Ages.The second is that some of the “solutions” currently being touted, to some of the “disasters” supposedly facing the earth and all who sail on her, are actually at risk of creating a very real threat to the safety of mankind and his fellow travelers, in place of the imaginary ones which they are intended to counter. A few years ago, when concern for the ozone layer was the fashionable cause du jour, much ado was made of the need to replace chlorofluorocarbons in aerosols and refrigeration plants, with hydrocarbons or hydro fluorocarbons. It is true that chlorine and bromine act as catalysts in the destruction of ozone; but these elements are dissociated from their source halons and freons by the same solar ultraviolet radiation which both creates and destroys ozone itself, depending on the level of such radiation being emitted by the sun at any given time, which, as with everything to do with the Big Yellow, is far from consistent. CFCs in the miniscule amounts produced by man may, or may not, have had anything to do with ozone depletion – and it is worth remembering that the Antarctic ozone hole was first recorded in 1956, and may have been coming and going cyclically for millennia – but in the meantime, everyone has had to have their car air conditioner re-gassed, at not inconsiderable expense. Remember Y2K? It was going to be the end of the world; every computer on earth was going to crash simultaneously (depending on one’s time zone, of course), the water and sewerage would go out, the traffic lights would fail, nuclear power stations would melt down, global communications and banking would cease to function, and,

we were quietly told, computer geeks all around the world were fleeing their workstations for the safety of survivalist bunkers in the desert, leaving the rest of us to face the wrath of everything from home appliances to digital watches which would probably go rabid and turn on us. Then, at the stroke of midnight, December 31st 1999, … um … nothing happened. Of course, by then, the world had already gone out and spent literally billions on new computers, just in case. Fortunately for unbelievers such as Yours Truly, the old stuff kept on working just fine. Not long afterwards, we were all supposed to die from SARS. That didn’t happen either, because the threat was never real, but millions of people spent millions of dollars anyway, on millions of face masks which wouldn’t have protected them if it had been. I mean come on – a paper dust mask, which doesn’t even seal, let alone filter, to protect you from an airborne virus? It sounds disturbingly similar to the Cold War advice about putting your head into a paper bag in the event of a nuclear attack. Quite what that was supposed to achieve I’m not sure; give the propagandists something to laugh about, I suppose, while they were pocketing the money from selling so many paper bags. This writer can remember being told that oil was going run out in thirty years, every year for the past thirty years. The latest prediction has Peak Oil occurring in 2038 … hmm, that’s about thirty years away. Meantime, we must buy while we can – at sixty-odd dollars a barrel. Memory tells me that at the time of the first oil shock in 1973, when oil hit the dizzying high of US$23 per barrel, the actual cost of unearthing that barrel and getting it to the refinery was seven cents. We have always been like this. I suspect that the concept of Vampires was invented by a garlic merchant. Today we live in fear of Bird Flu, a disease which cannot be transmitted from human to human, and which shows no signs of mutating into a form which can; meanwhile, millions upon millions of dollars are being spent on stockpiling a well-known proprietary drug, which, not being a vaccine, couldn’t cure it if it did. But the most immediately dangerous of the current follies of Man is of course Global Warming. Popular conviction that this entirely natural and totally unavoidable phenomenon is the fault of mankind, via his supposedly unholy relationship with a completely innocuous and absolutely essential trace gas, namely carbon dioxide, has led to the promotion of some bizarrely impractical, and predictably expensive, solutions. Trading in Carbon Credits has already begun; exactly how one country or company paying another for the right to continue polluting is supposed to save the planet escapes me, but apparently the market is speaking even as I write. Even if there were any validity to the Greenhouse Theory, the supposed offset effect of a CO2 producer in one hemisphere crediting their production against a sink in the other, is negated by the reality that the atmospheres of the two hemispheres only mix at the equator, and even then, by only one to two percent per year. The dangerous aspect to our Government’s irrational embracement of this process, and its forced sequestration of the said credits from the private forestry sector, means that no-one is planting trees in New Zealand anymore, because to do so will prove uneconomic. Consequently this country is currently undergoing a net loss of forest cover, for the first time since plantation pine was established in the 1920s. Carbon hysteria has also resulted in calls for Biofuels to replace

“I suspect that the concept of Vampires was invented by a garlic merchant. Today we live in fear of Bird Flu, a disease which cannot be transmitted from human to human, and which shows no signs of mutating into a form which can; meanwhile, millions upon millions of dollars are being spent on stockpiling a well-known proprietary drug, which, not being a vaccine, couldn’t cure it if it did”

mineral oil-based fuels, on the presumption that they are somehow “clean and green” in greenhouse terms. This is bizarre because the primary byproduct from the burning of ethanol, methanol, natural gas, rapeseed oil, palm oil, or, in fact, anything with carbon in it, petrol and diesel included, is – tada – carbon dioxide. (Hint for the Greenies – there’s carbon in biofuels. Lots of it. That’s why they burn.) The danger in accepting this insane theory is that serious proposals are now being made for the growing of food crops such as maize, purely for the production of motor fuel – and this in a world which has a growing population, a shrinking availability of land, and where people are already starving. Furthermore, even at best, efforts towards replacing a significant percentage of our existing motor fuels with bio-alternatives will be nothing better than an exercise in tokenism, and within that, they will tie up large tracts of our agricultural land in producing fuel, which can be easily provided by mineral oil (which isn’t running out), instead of food, which can not. The sheer volume of motor fuel required can never be matched by anything we can grow in crop form or harvest from existing wastes. Fonterra, for example, produces whey ethanol at an approximate volume of around 100,000 litres per month (the bulk of which currently goes to feed the appetites of New Zealand and Australian vodka and RTD drinkers). By comparison, New Zealand consumes petrol and diesel at an approximate volume of around 10 million litres per day. This does not include marine diesel, aviation petrol, or jet fuel. Do the maths. Biofuels are neither significant nor sensible nor sustainable. Turning food which is already in short supply, into fuel which isn’t, under these circumstances, on the basis of a completely spurious theory, is worse than madness; it is evil. Carbon neutrality is also a red herring. The total amount of carbon present on Planet Earth was fixed at about the time of the Big Bang. CO2 released by the burning of coal made from plants which died millions of years ago, will be absorbed by the plants of today; the whole process is cyclical, and neutral by definition. Beware the prophets of doom who insist that the sky is falling. It isn’t. However, they may well be trying to sell you an acornproof hat.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 21

LINE ONE

CHRIS CARTER

Electronic lobotomies all around, please

e all know the three great lies don’t we? But there is also a fourth and it revolves around the reluctance of many people to own up to the inordinate amount of time we spend gazing mindlessly at the one eyed monster that usually dominates the average Kiwi lounge. Television, that wonderful electronic box of tricks that brings the world literally to our very doorsteps and which in recent years appears to have re-moulded our personal lives if not society itself. But rather than to just reprise the history of Television here in New Zealand, perhaps we should just look at the medium and at the way it now appears to dominate our lives and probably in ways that we have never “A couple of calls go by, then all really thought about. firstly separate of a sudden out of your bedside outWefreeshould to air TV from Sky radio’s speaker bursts a stream pay TV, in that the actual of obscene invective including the content of free to air TV in most countries around the F’s the C’s and perhaps even the world is usually a whole lot dreaded N word no less” tamer in various respects than the stuff that people might choose to pay for, excepting that in New Zealand for some reason or another this most certainly is not the case. Imagine the following scenario. It’s nine o’clock at night, you’ve gone to bed a little earlier than usual for a bit of a read and a listen to what they’re on about on evening talk-back. A couple of calls go by, then all of a sudden out of your bedside radio’s speaker bursts a stream of obscene invective including the F’s the C’s and perhaps even the dreaded N word no less. To say that the sky would literally fall within radio land would be a gross understatement, The Broadcast Standards Authority the next morning would have to take its phone off the hook such would be the expressed outrage coming from those thus offended by this obscene intrusion via the otherwise well regulated radio broadcast system. But it’s around about at this point where we begin to realise what a load of unmitigated crap our Broadcasting Standards are in any case as we consider the fact that in the same bedroom at roughly the same time, TV2, simply as an example mid February might well have been pumping into the same sensitive ears the soundtrack of

22, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007

a British Crime Movie that repeatedly incorporated the entire lexicon of just about every obscene word, phrase, etc, and plus for good measure visual events that give new meaning entirely to acts of gratuitous violence. Does anyone complain that this kind of programming on Free to air TV is completely unacceptable? I would imagine not, simply because for some reason or another it is now deemed appropriate to play stuff on NZ TV that not ten years back would have had the station operators standing in the Dock! Which brings me to how this completely laissez-fair approach to so called “Broadcast Standards” with the content of free to air TV in this country and how it has adversely affected our society way beyond our probable comprehension. TVNZ and to a lesser point TV3 have long been the home of ultra liberal thought in action. From selection and presentation of News right through to actual program selection, these three channels seemingly delight in the underscoring of just about anything at all that maybe deemed harmful in the long term, to the young or the especially impressionable. From frightening the daylights out of kids for instance with the latest disease of the day, to “News” items that are not so much news as more of a window into the warped minds of news staff as to the need to more titillate or outrage an audience rather than to attempt to really inform it. Like kids watching the early evening news as a part of their homework these days are more likely to get items that will better suit them for a life of depravity rather than in any way end up of any use in the next day’s social studies class. They will learn for instance that according to TV there are now given truths to be relentlessly telecast that will persuade children overtime that yes, the bird flu will get you, that Al Gore is a saint and any who do not worship at his feet are “Climate Change Deniers”, that guys kissing guys and chicks doing likewise isn’t really that unusual, and that we only show it that often to show kids that a walk on the wild-side is just something that we in the television industry just happen to personally enjoy so much. Then for NZ’s ethnic minorities a continual diet of apologetic clap trap as to how the Brown person is ‘spiritually and morally’ downtrodden by the ever avaricious and generally wicked “Pakeha” is staple news and programming fare, a campaign that has over time succeeded

in the creation of divisions in our society that even Idi Amin was unable to achieve in Uganda. The continual Chicken Little like approach to matters Nuclear by TV in particular has now pretty well brainwashed the public at large to, in a modern technological sense, be happily acceptant of lives not too far removed from cave dwelling, and all this before we even begin to examine the now plain and undeniable links between TVNZ and its political owners and masters leading to increasingly blatant political propaganda now being daily passed off as news. And then we get to enter the mind-warping arena of actual programming where, not content with selecting and purchasing stuff for general broadcast that even Penthouse might think twice about printing, the Free to air channels run continual â&#x20AC;&#x153;Promoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;sâ&#x20AC;? throughout much of the day that not only are essentially composed in the main of the most salacious parts of the upcoming program, but can be absolutely guaranteed to entice any impressionable young mind out of sheer curiosity to sneak on their bedside TV after 8.30 at night to watch without Mum and Dad even knowing. None of this seems to occur much at all in most of the civilised world, for instance, even in the home of â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Great Satanâ&#x20AC;? as our Muslim brothers are apt to describe the United States, ABC, NBC, CBS those three great free to air networks, you will never ever hear bad language or see and hear obscene language or acts at any time. On Cable TV, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an entirely different story with stuff being broadcast that would have Granny in a blue fit, the argument there being that if you want to spend your money on grubby and generally disgusting stuff you should have the right to do so, but broadcast any rough stuff on Free to air then look forward as a station manager to trying to stay out of Big Daddyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s way on Rykers Island! Which surely then brings us to ask ourselves, why is it that we in New Zealand are apparently quite prepared to have our Television Channels freely broadcasting stuff that has now progressed far beyond the point of being depraved and utterly disgusting. Do we not care at all about the effect that this sort of stuff has on our kids? And donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t tell me that they are not getting to watch it; only really stupid people could think that for a single moment. So whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going on here, do we not care enough about our childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wellbeing anymore that we simply are prepared to shrug and do absolutely nothing at all to reduce the barrage of crudity and even gross obscenity that now forms so much of NZ TVâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nightly programming? Some people wonder why it now is that previously well spoken and presumably innocent 10-12 year olds now can make a wharfie blush. How these same kids thanks to the warped social engineering ideas of politicians and stuff they pick up from the Telly now know more about the finer points of sex than probably even Kinsey? How Maori kids in particular have been introduced to the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Gangstaâ&#x20AC;? culture of the East L.A. Gangs at the almost complete cost of their own culture by the continual bombardment of news items and Music Videos that would eventually brainwash anyone at all into a life of graffiti, dope, obscene language through so called Rap, and indeed a complete lifestyle change previously unknown outside of the worst slums in America. Yes indeed, thanks very much to television in New Zealand, you certainly have been even more responsible than you might think for helping to change our society, but from what and where

â&#x20AC;&#x153;So whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going on here, do we not care enough about our childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wellbeing anymore that we simply are prepared to shrug and do absolutely nothing at all to reduce the barrage of crudity and even gross obscenity that now forms so much of NZ TVâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nightly programming?â&#x20AC;?

are we all likely to end up if this current trend in this most powerful branch of the entertainment media is allowed to continue down this path completely unchecked? By the way these semi random thoughts are not coming from a churchy innocent thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s for sure, more like from a hard drinking rough sort of a bastard, but also I would like to think from someone genuinely outraged by an entire society being held morally to ransom by a branch of the electronic media completely out of control. Sad thing is, that such are the depths in this area into which we have sunk, that given our National Character itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most unlikely that anything will now change, thereby completely destroying the one time old truth that â&#x20AC;&#x153;NZ Is A Great Place To Bring Up Childrenâ&#x20AC;?. Shame isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t it? Chris Carter appears in association with www.snitch.co.nz, a must-see site.

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INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April1/26/07 2007, 23 1:50:18 PM

TOUGH QUESTIONS

IAN WISHART

The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun…

ere’s a little something you probably didn’t see on the TV news: Mars is undergoing global warming. Missed it? Yeah, so did most people. But according to scientists the Earth is not alone in suddenly beginning to heat up. I was alerted to the full extent of this by some comments on Investigate’s blog, TBR.cc, where details were posted of some new interplanetary climate research published on the National Geographic website. “Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet’s recent climate changes have a natural – and not a human-induced – cause, according to one scientist’s controversial theory. “Earth is currently expe“A growing number of scientists riencing rapid warming, are convinced the sun is heating which the vast majority of climate scientists says is up. They point out that there has due to humans pumping been more sunspot activity in huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmothe past 60 years than in the sphere. Mars, too, appears previous 1,000 years” to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures. “In 2005 data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide “ice caps” near Mars’ south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row. “Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.” Additionally, in 1999 Mars suffered its biggest recorded hurricane when a storm four times larger than the state of Texas blasted across it, then in 2001 endured an even larger, “global storm” that was utterly unprecedented since the invention of the telescope. Naturally, there are no humans or flatulent cows on Mars, and the fact that two planets are now experiencing global warming independent of each other indicates the Kyoto Protocol and energy efficient lightbulbs are a waste of time. If the sun is heating up, then there’s nothing we can do about it. Not convinced yet? Try Venus. A Stanford University research team pub-

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lished findings in 2001 that the brightness of Venus has, so far inexplicably, increased by a whopping 2,500% over the previous 25 years. Scientists around the world have trained their radio telescopes on the problem, but none have answers yet. “Something weird is going on in the upper atmosphere of Venus,” remarks Dr David Crisp, of the NASA/ Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “The first bottom line is that we just don’t know what’s going on,” although the prime culprit is suspected to be the sun. Adding weight to that diagnosis, the discovery of a massive “plasma tail” of charged particles burning off Venus, blown by the solar wind and stretching 45 million kilometers – almost reaching Earth. Then there’s Jupiter, which has also been experiencing strange planetary weather events. In April 2004 USA Today quoted astrophysicists warning that Jupiter was heading into global warming that could produce a temperature rise of 10 degrees in just ten years, based on current readings. Jupiter’s moon, Io, is undergoing bizarre changes itself, with a doubling of its surface temperature in just 20 years. Its other moons are similarly changing dramatically. Nearby, Saturn is having what NASA calls dramatic weather changes, accompanied by a 1000% increase in brightness. Neptune’s moon, Triton, has leapt in temperature equivalent to a 10 degree rise on Earth, in the space of just nine years. So it doesn’t matter where you look for planetary warming – it is happening throughout the solar system. Now to start tying some of these loose ends up, what might they mean? Firstly, the allegation by environmentalists on Planet Earth is that the planet is heating up because of human interference. This is called anthropogenic global warming, meaning human-caused. What might prove such a thesis to be untrue? Well, if it could be established that global warming was happening on planets not settled by humans, that should be a slam-dunk proof that whatever the cause is, it cannot be human. Does it mean that we shouldn’t plan ahead? Of course not, but it does mean that switching to electric cars and long-life lightbulbs, and paying governments enormous amounts of money in “carbon taxes”, is a waste of time and effort.

NASA/JPL

Hence comments like this one by leading scientists: “There is no dispute at all about the fact that even if punctiliously observed, (the Kyoto Protocol) would have an imperceptible effect on future temperatures – one-twentieth of a degree by 2050,” wrote Dr. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist and Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service, in a Sept. 10, 2001 letter to the Wall Street Journal. Isn’t that good to know? When you realize the extra dollar a litre in carbon taxes on petrol will, over the next 43 years, drop global temperatures by 0.05 degrees Celsius? So what is behind global warming? A growing number of scientists are convinced the sun is heating up. They point out that there has been more sunspot activity in the past 60 years than in the previous 1,000 years. The sun’s magnetic field increased by 230% in the past century, and the three largest solar flares ever recorded have taken place within the last ten years. Which leads me to a theological answer, one posted by another commenter on the TBR.cc blogsite: “The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire. They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him. (Revelation 16:8-9 NIV)” In the Gospel of Luke, 21:7, the disciples ask Christ if there will be any signs to watch for before the end of the world. His answer is covered in three of the four gospels, but Luke outlines it best: “When you hear of wars and insurrections, don’t panic,” replies

Jesus. “Yes, these things must come, but the end won’t follow immediately. “Nations and kingdoms will proclaim war against each other. There will be great earthquakes, and there will be famines and epidemics in many lands, and there will be terrifying things and great miraculous signs in the heavens. “But before all this occurs, there will be a time of great persecution. You will be dragged into synagogues and prisons, and you will be accused before kings and governors of being my followers. “… and there will be strange events in the skies - signs in the sun, moon, and stars. And down here on Earth, the nations will be in turmoil, perplexed by the roaring seas and strange tides. The courage of many people will falter because of the fearful fate they see coming upon the earth, because the stability of the very heavens will be broken up. “Then everyone will see the Son of Man arrive on the clouds with power and great glory. So when all these things begin to happen, stand straight and look up, for your salvation is near!” As Christ was at pains to point out, no-one will know the exact day or hour of his return, but there will be signs to watch for. “You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky,” he chided his followers, “but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.” More people died in wars and communist purges last century than in all the wars of history beforehand combined. New disease threats are stalking and claiming lives in ways never before possible, thanks to our modern lifestyles, and according to the weather doom merchants our planet is heating up at a catastrophic rate. Something to think about, really.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 25

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The

Legend of the GREAT SOUTH BASIN

How two big oil discoveries could catapult NZ into OPEC Back in the 1970s, some of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s richest oilmen came prowling the coast of New Zealand. According to popular rumour and conspiracy theory they struck it big, but chose not to tell the NZ Government. Now the official documents have been released, and they confirm the Great South Basin is one of the biggest unexplored conventional oilfields in the world. IAN WISHART has more

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 27

nce upon a time, in the tradition of all the best legends, there was a land that we now call New Zealand. Only, back then, it didn’t have a name and it looked and sounded very, very different from the way it currently does. A land of lush jungles and grasslands, peppered by volcanoes but no Southern Alps, ancient New Zealand was also much bigger than the current version. Residents of modern New Plymouth, for example, who currently step off the footpath virtually into the sea, would have faced a long walk to the beach back then – something in the region of 140 kilometres further west. It was a dangerous walk, Jurassic Park-style velociraptors lurked behind pretty much every second bush, and dragonflies practically the size of small dogs would have made the journey interesting as well. When they finally reached the coast, our travelers would have crested the ridge to see a sweeping delta, with herds of dinosaurs on the plains and a massive river winding like a silvery ribbon through the deceptively tranquil-seeming countryside. Something happened, however, not just in New Zealand but around the world, and not only did the Age of Dinosaurs come to an end but so to did the layout of the planet as we currently know it. Land was swallowed by the sea, never to emerge again, taking with it the animals and vegetation. Cut forward 60-odd million years, and a boat carrying a gaggle of kiwi oil geologists is heaving in the swells rolling in across the Tasman sea; their instruments and seismic gear tell them they’re several hundred metres above the dinosaur delta. And where the ancient river carried debris and silt to an ancient sea, there’s buried treasure, they tell themselves. One of those expressing excitement is Chris Uruski, a geoscientist at New Zealand’s Crown research institute, Geological and Nuclear Sciences. Uruski has been studying the figures, and reckons the Taranaki Basin oilfields are similar to those of Australia’s Gippsland Basin, off the Victorian coast. “Both basins,” Uruski told a petroleum conference in Melbourne four years ago, “were formed in similar climates about 100 million years ago, occupy the same latitude, and are mostly offshore. But the important feature they shared was a large delta – where ancient river systems and the sea met millions of years ago.” Prime conditions, he added, for the presence of huge volumes of oil. “We estimate that the Deepwater Taranaki Basin may contain as much as 20 billion barrels of trapped oil.” If 50% of that trapped oil can be found, he says, maybe half of that again, “perhaps five billion barrels, may be produced from that basin.” What’s that worth in today’s petro-dollars? The correct answer is another question: “How many zeroes would you like on the end of that cheque?” Many oil industry pundits now believe we’ve reached “Peak Oil”, the point where most of the easily accessible black gold, Texas tea – call it what you will – has already been discovered and extracted. With the massively populated China and India now demanding Western-sized oil deliveries, there’s increasing pressure on prices at the pump worldwide as demand outstrips supply. All of which makes frontierlands like New Zealand suddenly flavour of the month in boardrooms across Texas, New

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York and Europe. We may not have the “bubbling crude” of Jed Clampett and the Beverley Hillbillies fame that seeped up out of the ground, but we have submerged oilfields that would make Rockefeller weep. How much would five billion barrels in the Taranaki Basin be worth? On today’s rates, somewhere just under the half-trillion dollar mark. By the time the wells are drilled, the rigs are in place and the stuff is refined, petrol prices might well have doubled. Which is why the opening up of the mythical Great South Basin, off the Southland coast, this year, is creating so much excitement. In the words of Uruski, while Taranaki is potentially huge, the South may yield three times as much crude. “The Great South Basin probably has larger potential,” he told Explorer magazine last year, “so we’re talking perhaps of 15 billion barrels”. For those old enough to remember, the legend of the Great South Basin began in the early 1969 when Hunt Petroleum, founded by Texas oil billionaire H L Hunt, came knocking on New Zealand’s door, looking for oilfields away from the Middle East. The TV series Dallas was based on the lives of Hunt and his children, and in fact the scriptwriters had to leave out much of the wilder exploits because no one in TV-land would have believed them. “During the initial years of exploration activity, 1970-73, several phases of seismic shooting were undertaken,” notes an official evaluation released on the Crown Minerals website just before Christmas. International pressures from the first OPEC oil shock in 1973 stepped up the pace – the Hunt firm had been stung in Libya when its assets were nationalized by Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi in 1972. Drilling began in the Great South Basin in 1976, and was big news for a while in lil’ ol’ New Zealand. “It started back with Hunt Petroleum of course,” says Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt, “the biggest Texas oil company in the world, a family company, and they came down here in the late 70s early 80s and drilled a series of about eight bores. But they did find oil, and there’s all sorts of people like that fellow Todd – he’s an auctioneer down here – he’s got a little canister of oil. Bill Todd, he’s got a canister of oil that he proudly shows everyone, beautiful oil – it’s not black crude, its golden oil, a bit like the old Singer sewing machine oil we used to have when I was a kid. Very fine, looks like you could almost put it into a diesel car and run it.” How much oil? In a 1981 appraisal for the NZ Government, the oil exploration consortium reported, “The Great South Basin has the potential to contain up to 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil.” Twenty five years later, in March 2006, the Government carried out fresh seismic surveys and, as NZPA reported, found signs that the Great South Basin was “far larger and more extensive than previously thought”. For officials to be estimating a 15 billion barrel yield, that could mean potential reserves of up to 40 billion barrels. Add that to Taranaki’s 20 billion, and you’re getting close to the Iraqi total of 80 billion. Admittedly, both Iraq (surprisingly) and New Zealand remain underexplored. Only 2000 wells have been drilled in Iraq, whereas 1 million were sunk into Texas, and New Zealand has 360 abandoned oil and gas wells, according to GNS figures. Of course, there are vast differences in the Iraqi and New

“For those old enough to remember, the legend of the Great South Basin began in the early 1969 when Hunt Petroleum, founded by Texas oil billionaire H L Hunt, came knocking on New Zealand’s door, looking for oilfields away from the Middle East” Zealand oilfields. It is one thing to sink a hole in the desert and simply start pumping. It is entirely another to send a drill bit 1.2 kilometres below the surface of the Southern Ocean, and then to drill for another kilometre or two through rock, all the while being pounded on the surface by the Roaring 40s and the massive swells of the frigid south. “No, it wasn’t easy going for them,” says Shadbolt of the Hunt venture in the seventies, “because the theory was that in the Southern Ocean there wouldn’t be waves bigger than 10m or something, and there were waves of 15m coming in. So poor old Penrod 78 [the drilling rig], which was huge for its day, got smashed to pieces and had to retreat up to Stewart Island, so it was pretty hard going for them. At least we established that we need the really big rigs to have a chance down here.” And therein lies part of the problem. With oil exploration surging as the big companies strive to find replacement fields before the cheap stuff runs out, getting a major drilling rig to come down to New Zealand is nigh on impossible, as Crown Minerals group manager Adam Feeley explained on National Radio last year.

“The biggest problem though , is actually just finding drilling rigs…in some cases you can’t get access to a rig at any cost – at least, not for 18 months. Right now, the demand for rigs is outstripping supply.” It wasn’t just a damaged oil rig that prevented the Hunt brothers from taking advantage of the Great South Basin back in the 1980s, however. The impact of the oil shock had led them to diversify away from oil: “But the [Hunt] sons took over, and they came up with a cunning plan,” remembers Mayor Tim Shadbolt. “They thought that if they could get one product or one resource, and have the world monopoly on it, then they would be the richest family in the world, instead of the richest family in Texas. So they looked at diamonds and various other options, and eventually they came up with silver. They decided to give the world a monopoly on silver, and therefore they would control the price and therefore they’d be multi-multi multibillionaires. And the cunning plan worked for a while. They bought up all the shares in silver mines, silver outlets and silver distributors, and once they got control – I don’t think they had total, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 29

was happening and it was not a good thing for competition, and it started bringing in all kinds of regulations to close them down. Or at least make them pay. So overnight, they went from being multi-multi-multi-billionaires to being in not quite such good shape, and they fire sold a lot of their properties in New York.” The losses for the Hunts kept mounting, and by 1987 had hit US$2.5 billion against assets of only $1.5 billion. The oldest son, Nelson Bunker Hunt, declared bankruptcy in 1988.

“There is no doubt at all, that it is the biggest unexplored oilfield in the world – or virtually unexplored – but we all know there is oil down there and it is very good quality oil, so it is definitely going to happen” but I think they had around 90% – of the world re sources, then they started jacking the price up of course.” They began their little adventure in 1973, when silver was just US$1.95 an ounce. In early 1979, at the peak of their NZ oil drilling, they’d pushed the silver price up to US$5, but in 1980 it exploded, topping out at US$49.45 an ounce. “Of course there is always a flipside,” chuckles Shadbolt, “and the flipside was that all the users got together, with the shock of the price increases, and the biggest user of silver in the world at that time was the photography industry. Silver was part of the processing of photos, so they got a lot of scientific boffins and worked out a way to recycle the silver that is used in the photographic process. So overnight, the Hunts lost their main customer, and the second thing that happened of course was the American stock exchange, which worked out that this 30, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007

he Hunts had bailed from New Zealand in the early 1980s, even though they struck oil, and lots of it, on the sly. It was a confusing picture for a while, because the National Government of Rob Muldoon had declared that nothing of note was found in the Great South Basin. Yet despite that declaration and the disappearance of the Hunts, rumours grew. A young Radio Hauraki news journalist, later to become a magazine editor, was contacted in 1984 by an oil worker who claimed to have worked on the Hunt exploration when they struck big oil. “They simply cemented it up, put a cap on it, and sailed away. We were all sworn to silence,” he added, “but don’t let them tell you there’s nothing there. It’s a huge field!” In his recent book, “The Lost Oilfields of New Zealand”, Southland author and former oil worker Brian Jackson recounts a similar story, saying workers on the Hunt rig were locked inside when they unexpectedly hit an undersea “gusher”, 50 or 60km east of Stewart Island. Jackson claims the Hunts didn’t want New Zealanders to see the oil or get a bearing on the location. “The anchors were pulled and the rig was put under way,” he told journalists at the time of his book launch, and “when it had moved away from the oil slick, the New Zealand crew members were unlocked.” Tim Shadbolt, who can see the boomtimes for his region if this all comes off, has met Jackson to discuss the Great South Basin. “I’ve met with him, and he has got all sorts of theories about how [the Hunts] deliberately left, how they stalled the government – they’re supposed to have a government engineer with them every time they are drilling, and on this day they deliberately gave him the wrong time to meet at the wharf. So he didn’t get there, and that was the day they had the gusher that they supposedly cemented up. It could all be true, and none of it could be true. Oil is like gold, it creates this huge emotional drama for everyone involved. New Zealanders are great gossips. “The rumour is,” adds Shadbolt conspiratorially, “that one of the basements in these properties in New York [sold by the Hunts] contained all the South Sea oil basin research and seismic information – it sounds ludicrous, but it is a bit like grandma dying and the kids, who are not that interested, throwing out all her Queen Anne furniture into a rubbish skip or something. “There is no doubt at all, that it is the biggest unexplored oilfield in the world – or virtually unexplored – but we all know there is oil down there and it is very good quality oil, so it is definitely going to happen.” But at what price? Apart from losing the shirts off their back in their ill-fated silver venture, another reason the Hunts apparently upped stakes was because of a royalty spat with the New

“But there are other jewels up for the finding in the Basin. Natural gas reserves are now estimated to be ten trillion cubic feet, or around three times larger than the Maui gas fields that supplied New Zealand for decades” Zealand Government, which wanted the standard OPEC rate of around 20%. In today’s dollar terms, assuming 15 billion barrels at US$60 each, that’s a total field value of NZ$1.3 trillion. Twenty percent of that would be a cool $260 billion for the NZ economy, and that’s not including the money spent on infrastructure and bases in Southland. But while the citizens of Southland will enjoy the economic trickledown, the revenue for New Zealand overall won’t be anywhere near $260 billion, because the Government is asking for royalties of only a quarter of that. Tim Shadbolt sympathises with those who claim it’s a sellout, but says they’re ignoring reality. “I’ve been to several meetings with people who were involved at the time [of the Hunt exploration], and had several meetings in my office with key players, and down here the general consensus seems to be that Muldoon was playing hardball with these guys and wasn’t happy with the percentage shares. They felt that because the conditions were so rough that the government should be getting less, and that’s why – when they pulled out – Muldoon didn’t want to sort of lose face and admit that he mucked up, so he tended to emphasise that no one knew. And

he was right, I mean, you can’t say whether there is significant oil there or not, after drilling only eight holes. Nobody knows – to me, that is the reality. It is basically an unexplored field. “Because of the conditions, it would be like North Sea oil, it would be the toughest conditions in the world to actually work in. They say, in round figures, that it’s around $1 million a day to keep a big offshore rig drilling. So there is a huge risk factor in there, and I think that is why the present government is accepting a lower royalty percentage, whereas Muldoon was holding out for 20 or so per cent the usual rate.” But there are other jewels up for the finding in the Basin. Natural gas reserves are now estimated to be ten trillion cubic feet, or around three times larger than the Maui gas fields that supplied New Zealand for decades. The Government is hoping the combined oil and gas yields will lure Seven Sisters companies like Royal Dutch Shell or Exxon Mobil – major players with the financial grunt and big rigs at their fingertips. There’s even speculation Hunt Petroleum might come back – according to one Investigate source the company has been sniffing around for land near Bluff and making other inquiries with local industry. INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 31

Some oil industry veterans are privately voicing the prospect that the Taranaki and Great South Basin finds could be enough to catapult New Zealand into OPEC, the oil production cartel. Others, however, argue that while we may have the resources, New Zealand currently still doesn’t have a high enough profile on the world stage. There is, GNS scientist Chris Uruski told Explorer magazine, “A perception that New Zealand is gas prone”. It is oil that is sexy, not gas. “Explorers have told me…New Zealand is much too nice a place to find oil! Really, it is not proximal to anything much, apart from Australia and Antarctica, which also have small populations. Our remoteness is a definite disincentive, particularly for those who still think they are in danger of finding gas here. “The main barriers to exploration are financial and will,” he argues. “So far, explorers have played it fairly safe. Generally, exploration companies like to expand exploration efforts incrementally from land to shallow waters, further offshore, gradually getting deeper. New Zealand’s potential lies mostly in deep water, so it needs someone with deep pockets to take the plunge.”

till, with oil prices hitting record highs last year and fewer new fields being discovered, Uruski believes New Zealand’s time has come. The only alternative for the major oil companies at the moment is the even more expensive option of extracting oil from shales and other rocks in North America and Venezuela. The two-largest known oil reserves in the world are locked up in those shales, around three to four trillion barrels of oil. But the technology involved in extracting oil from rock is a whole lot more expensive than deepwater drilling for underground oil lakes. In the meantime, Invercargill is gearing up for the boom. “The tenders will be closed on second of April,” says Shadbolt. “We had a meeting in Invercargill last night of various companies that are involved in the oil industry, and we asked guest speakers from local companies like L. and M. Mining – who have been doing a lot of testing in the area – Crown Minerals sent a spokesman as well, and they have said yes, there is a significant interest from the main players, the big companies, who have uplifted all the data that they have available. They will be in negotiations with the companies who have tendered, and it will be announced in August who has got them. “From council’s point of view, we just want to make sure that the oil companies are very aware of how many good engineers we have got down here, and try and make sure that once again we become the centre for the testing that is done. So we have set up a website, www.oilgasmineralsnz.com, and it lists everything that you would need for oil exploration. “We are also running a series of workshops, just to let local businesses know what oil companies are like, how they operate, what their expectations are. For example, they run 24/7 all year, there is no such thing as after hours or anything like that when you are dealing with the oil industry. They are insistent that everything has to be – if you say you are going to do something it has to be done, because it is such an intense operation and such an expensive project to do.” Is Southland ready to be the new Emirates? “They are already calling me Sheikh Shadbolt down here, they are teasing me. But oil does seem to flow in the most adverse environmental conditions. It is either deserts or the 32, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007

most ferocious oceans imaginable, but nobody knows, at the end of the day, no one can say for certain what’s down there. All we know is, it definitely is oil. “The mood of the city is quite excited actually,” continues Shadbolt, “and although you don’t get a huge benefit compared with the wealth generated, you certainly get the guys on rest and recreation with big wages – they come into town with big excitement, so it’s almost buzzing. And we are on a bit of a roll anyway at the moment, everything we touch seems to work out really well, so there seems to be quite a lot of interest all right. “Every time a big block of land now gets sold around Bluff or the coast down there, it immediately unleashes a wave of speculation, “oh, that’s Shell, Shell’s bought that!” I just take everything with a grain of salt, it is possible, you don’t know because they do it through agents, and we have tried to track down who is behind some of these things, it is possible but we just don’t know.” And that, in a nutshell, sums up the mystery of oil: until you strike a gusher, you really just don’t know.

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INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 33

Rumpelstiltskin turned straw into gold, but Steve Ryan reckons he can make more money turning water into steam, by way of a water powered car. LAURA WILSON caught up with Ryan as he begins a global search for investors in his new technology, and his plans to win the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s richest car race 34, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007

nventor Steve Ryan’s mission is to give the world exactly what it’s looking for. The hunt for solutions to our global pollution crisis has become the scientific race of the century. Even global warming sceptics such as National’s John Key are opportunistically rebranding themselves as ecocrusaders, under the weight of public concern. Labour’s new Minister for Climate Change, David Parker, has thrown down the gauntlet by introducing drastic

new carbon-reducing legislation. Suddenly, costly changes to industry and consumerism stonewalled for decades are moving into top gear. Some say the window of opportunity to reverse ecological damage, has closed. Scientific luminaries such as Ecologist magazine progenitor Ted Goldsmith and Gaia hypothesist James Lovelock believe the planet is actively dying. Given that there is no way to un-create the toxic elements we have released, they conclude the earth is simply too poisoned to survive. Steve Ryan, however, believes it is a waste of time to lay guilt upon the average consumer, who is at the end of the food chain in terms of carbon consumption. In the example of automotive fuel, Ryan’s speciality, consumer choice is between high or low octane petrol, diesel or petroleum gas. All carbon-based, all alleged greenhouse pollutants. The only ‘green’ option is not fuelling up at all, and bussing or walking to work. Yet the survival of our economy depends greatly on mobility and our uptake of industrial output. We are pressured to consume, even more than we are pressured to pollute less. Whilst the consumer’s ability to reduce global warming is limited to selecting the lesser evil, the producer has the ability to introduce carbon-free products to the marketplace. Enter Biosfuel, Ryan’s Auckland based company. TV3’s 60 Minutes profiled one of Biosfuel’s key developments, a waterbased alternative fuel in October 2005. Whilst revealing little of the processes involved, Ryan took the film crew through the stages of converting ordinary tap water into a hydrogenenriched liquid capable of igniting in a combustion engine. Whilst hydrogen is already used internationally as a fuel in hybrid electric vehicles, no one has managed to utilise it while still within water, for use in a standard engine. This makes Ryan’s claims either an astounding achievement or an imaginative fantasy. In spite of scrupulously checking each stage of the process from tap to fuel tank and finding no covert ingredients, 60 Minutes grilled Ryan on the unlikelihood of such a scientific breakthrough being genuine. Ryan’s retort was succinct; it doesn’t matter what people think, it’s happening. Having the fuel tested without revealing the IP is problematic. Eighteen months after the TV3 documentary, and Biosfuel’s promise of “the fuel of the future”, a visit to the company’s laboratories finds Ryan and his team of four still at work on a raft of projects, including fuel saving devices, biodiesel blends, ecological batteries and various forms of hydrogen and hybrid fuels, including the water fuel. I received an extensive guided tour leaving little undisclosed except some stages of the water treatment including the names of key metals used. Nothing suggested an elaborate ruse in process. The water fuel can be observed in action and to appease the suspicious, fuel tanks and engines can be checked for hidden ingredients. The lab costs an excess of $10,000 a month to run, an unlikely amount to splurge on quackery. It has snowballed to this level since 2002, when Ryan decided the results he was achieving meant he better stop tinkering and start devoting his energy solely to developing the technology he discovered. Since 60 Minutes, much of Ryan’s feedback has been incredulous, frequently accusing him of faking a quantum leap in science. Obviously used to criticism he quietly counters this by pointing out that every area of science has advanced over INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 35

Steve Ryan's water-engine is filmed by TV3's 60 Minutes

the decades in gradual stages, so that technology seemingly implausible twenty years ago is accepted today. Except where energy technology is concerned. Here, science has remained fundamentally unchanged for over a century.

e has a point. We have all witnessed the growth of bizarre science; genetic engineering, face transplants, thought-directed bionic limbs, conversations via satellite and the paradigm-shattering realm of sub-atomic physics. Our initial disbelief and, at times, horror, inevitably mutes to acceptance. Yet we maintain a paradoxical suspicion of new energies and fuels. Consequently, society remains stuck with the same automotive fuel used by Henry Ford, and the same solid fuel (coal) used to power the first steam engines. If Ryan’s company is indeed one to assist bringing energy technology into the 21st century, it couldn’t have come at a more receptive time. Not only are politicians vying for environmentalist status, but corporations like BP are undergoing ‘green’ image makeovers. While renaming itself Beyond Petroleum, BP gets to deal in the same dirty oil whilst refocusing attention on its resplendent green flower logo. Irony aside, the acknowledgement from industry and government is a recognition that our transportation future must involve something other than oil. 36, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007

In spite of this apparent mood for change, receptivity toward the water-fuel has been anything but welcoming. Ryan’s obvious prerogative has been to have his fuel validated. Securing a patent is one way to achieve this, the other is to have university, government-sponsored and industry research laboratories test the fuel. But by the time I talked to Ryan, neither patents nor lab tests had been achieved. Ryan is not shy about his product, and provided non-disclosure agreements are signed, he welcomes scrutiny. The problem lies in getting anyone in a position of some authority to be interested. Pursuing international patents exposed a seldom-used clause in the regulations, enabling the governments of NZ, Australia, China, Canada and the USA to with-hold patent applications, denying even the inventor the right to utilise their design for up to twenty years. The object is to protect national security from destructive new technology. Whilst the water-fuel itself is benign, Ryan is aware of the repercussions a cheap, oil-free fuel could have on core infrastructure relationships between governments, petrocorps and the transport network. Ryan claims even the slight possibility restrictions could be imposed caused him to forego patents in favour of authorised lab testing. Among those approached was noted academic, Dr. Robert Raine of Auckland University Engineering Department. His speciality is the combustion engine and all that relates to it, including alternative fuels. The lab he superintends is one of the country’s premier facilities for testing emissions and new fuel developments. At 60 Minutes request, Raine looked over some emissions data provided by a Biosfuel engineer. The data indicates the composition of a fuel by analysing chemicals present in its exhaust. Dr. Raine suggested levels of carbon in the water-fuels emissions bore similarity to fossil fuels. As carbon is not a constituent of water he suspected the presence of other fuel ingredients. 60 Minutes phoned Ryan, asking him to be at the TV Studio in 40 minutes to offer his rebuttal. A quick phone call to his engineer and an oil company representative confirmed Ryan’s own theory that old sump oil in the motorbike he used for fuel testing was the likely source of the carbon contamination. Unfortunately the oil company representative was not prepared to state this on camera. This explanation failed to impress Raine, who recommended Ryan prove his point by releasing the water-fuel formula to the world, a gesture he defined as ‘for the good of (Ryan’s) own soul’. Curious as to why Raine didn’t solve the matter simply by testing the fuel on his own equipment, I arranged an interview. Dr. Raine has been invested with a lot of responsibility by our government. He heads a task force charged with nutting out a way to reduce and clean up New Zealand’s vehicle emissions. His current proposals for reducing national carbon output include increasing petrol and road-user taxes, outlawing vehicles over 15 years old, and beefing up W.O.F. requirements for clean engines. In response to my question Raine described how over the years he’s seen a lot of ‘Steve Ryans’ come and go. Self-styled inventors claiming to have achieved breakthroughs that thousands of well paid scientists around the world have not. He believes they often want nothing more than the 15 minutes of fame afforded them through association with men of credibility such as Raine. Notwithstanding this possibility, I asked if

“BP is a major sponsor of the show and due to an earlier encounter with their research consultant, Ryan believed his entry of a Dodge-Ram having a custom built fuel saver, the original water powered bike now on LPG and the electric bike would be denied entry” Steve Ryan with water-powered bike

he’d clear up the ambiguity by running the water fuel through some tests, given the urgency of our need for non-polluting fuels, and the public interest created by 60 Minutes. Raine acknowledged his lab was used not infrequently to test new fuels and engines, often by private developers under considerable secrecy. There was nothing to prevent Ryan applying to have his fuel tested, provided a fee of approximately $20,000 was paid in advance. This seemed a fairly prohibitive sum for a University to charge, ruling out many independent researchers.

n the other hand, many other product developers have to stump up with sums like these to test ideas that, whilst they may be good for society, are also good for the developer’s bank balance if successful. With existing operating costs for Ryan of $10,000 per month, Raine’s fee doesn’t seem unreachable for Biosfuel. Ryan, on the other hand, insists it is, countering that these expenses relate to set-up costs averaged out, and not an available monthly budget, which remains very tight. Nonetheless, I asked Raine whether it was the responsibility of publicly funded laboratories to have more of an open-door policy toward investigating developments that might result in Greenhouse solutions. Raine’s response was somewhat jaded, inferring that as the line between public and private blurs, national assets like his laboratory are increasingly forced to operate as businesses. He added that although his mandate includes selection of research projects, and even fee waivers where he recognises sufficient merit, his understanding of energy circumscribed by the first two laws of thermodynamics prevents him from investigating Ryan’s fuel because in theory he believes it to be impossible. Thermodynamics delineates the amount of energy obtainable from any substance, for example water, as relative to the time, effort and materials it takes to extract the energy out. Every bit of energy released, whether it’s the calories in a piece of choc-

olate, or the hydrogen element in water, has first had energy put in. According to Raine, the bottom line has been reached regarding the energy potential within water, and its thermodynamic equation shows too much energy goes into extracting the hydrogen, than it is worth as an energy provider. Yet hydrogen is routinely described as the fuel of the future. Scientists predicted its use as earth’s primary energy source as far back as the 1800’s. It makes sense, as hydrogen accounts for ninety-two percent of all matter in the universe. Whilst we have released tremendous amounts of energy by splitting the hydrogen atom, as in the H bomb, to date efforts to utilise the resident energy in water have not been realised. But Ryan claims to have found a novel way of making the hydrogen available, excluding the need for electric current to break open the water molecule. His method requires no electrical input. Moreover, it retains the hydrogen in its water matrix, removing the other inefficiency of the need to store and utilise the collected hydrogen as a gas. Raine categorically denied this was possible, and no amount of visual testimonies would inspire him to investigate the matter further. For a second academic opinion I approached Raine’s distant colleague, Dr. Ralph Simms, Director of Energy Research at Massey University. Simms presented a more optimistic view of renegade physics when asked to comment on Ryan’s technology by 60 Minutes. A self-described futurist, Simms calculates the world’s rapidly increasing future energy requirements and researches ways to meet demand without proportionally increasing global warming. Lately much of his time is spent in Paris where he acts as energy consultant to European heads of government. He seemed open-minded concerning the likelihood a breakthrough in energy technology might come from left-field as in the case of Biosfuel, alluding to the infamous ‘backyard inventor’ attribute of Kiwi folklore. These comments amounted to an olive branch from academia to the maligned Biosfuel. As Simms had INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 37

“Creating a biodiesel took Ryan a matter of weeks, costing out at around 30 cents a litre, causing him to question the necessity of growing vast oilseed crops when waste oils are abundant, with manufacturers often paying to have them removed”

not actually witnessed the fuel in operation, Ryan responded by sending him a volley of invitations to visit the lab. Simms is in the perfect position to put Ryan’s fuel to the test, perhaps incorporating it into this department’s research programme, the goal of which is the creation of fuels for the future.

s Ryan had not yet received a response I contacted Simms to enquire whether he intended to investigate Biosfuel further, and was surprised to receive a categorical ‘no’. Without explanation of his attitude shift, Simms defended his lack of interest reciting the same thermodynamic laws. His knowledge of energy-science enables him to pass judgement on the water-fuel without laying eyes on it. With good-humoured emphasis he put the odds of Ryan’s fuel being genuine at “not a million to one, but a billion to one”. That puts anyone who has driven down the road in a vehicle powered by Ryan’s altered water, in a difficult position, no one has done this except with the motorbike. I pushed the point with Dr. Simms, angling for a third option that within the sweeping realm of science, room exists for an as yet unexplained energy extraction from water. I related as much of the water-fuel’s formula as Ryan had allowed me to see. That hydrogen was entrained in the water through a catalytic metal reaction, not electrolysis. The longer it was left, the more hydrogen enriched it became. While Simms’ response didn’t altogether rule out the possibility Ryan was getting increased energy out, he remained adamant he must correspondingly have put more energy in than he was admitting. Simms assured me it would take more energy to break the H-O bond than was contained in the bond itself. Other institutes approached such as Auckland’s Carrington Tech reneged on initial expressions of interest in testing the water-fuel for similar reasons. No amount of visual testimony was sufficient to entice them to investigate Ryan’s methods. 38, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007

From academia’s perspective, the fuels of the future are blends of biodiesel. Dr. Raine favours beef tallow as a raw material, and Dr. Simms the vast oilseed crops his department is cultivating around the Manawatu. But these alternatives have severe limitations of their own. Firstly, they emit CO2, the “Greenhouse Gas’ in much the same ratio as traditional fossil fuels. The reason biodiesel (and other alternatives) is seen as a clean option whilst in fact emitting similar pollutants, is explained by the term carbon neutral. A possible misnomer, as it’s easily confused with carbon-free, it means the carbon a fuel releases roughly equals the carbon it consumed out of the air as a growing crop. By this definition, fossil fuels are also carbon-neutral, but as their carbon consumption occurred millions of years ago it is not seen to count. Alternatives such as Biodiesel and ethanol are currently available through a network of American service stations, but uptake is low because ordinary gasoline remains the cheapest option by a considerable margin. The infrastructure for gathering and distributing oil products is well in place, whereas biodiesel requires massive land cultivation and raw material processing at high cost. When asked why neither professor rated non-polluting hydrogen as a viable future fuel, it again came down to cost. Both financial and environmental. Mercedes, BMW and Mazda currently have H vehicles on the road, and Iceland hosts the world’s first H refuelling station with plans for total conversion by 2050. The method used is the H fuel cell, wherein H and O are continuously added to the cell, producing a reaction of electricity, water and heat. The vehicle is then powered by the electricity The costs involved in hydrogen production include massive electricity generation required for electrolysis, the storage and transportation of the volatile gas, and manufacturing a fleet of hydrogen-compatible vehicles. Currently, a hydrogen car costs over one hundred times its petrol equivalent, and hydrogen fuel five times current petrol prices. Given these restrictions

even the most favourable forecasters put a hydrogen economy some forty to fifty years away from making any impact. This could be decades more than our remaining tracts of forest have, and puts hydrogen in the same niche camp as Climate Change Minister David Parker’s pet, the electric car. As long as cost dominates over environmental concerns, gasoline will remain the primary fuel of our planet. One of the most appealing features of Ryan’s hydrogen burning waterfuel is that unlike existing alternatives it will undercut petrol in price by a considerable margin. But fuel production is only a third of the battle. Distribution and vehicle compatibility are higher mountains to climb. The current infrastructure of fuelling stations owned by the petroleum industry is an unlikely distribution option, and opening a few independent fuel depots won’t satisfy motorist’s needs for flexibility. It is here that Biosfuel’s appeal takes a considerable leap. Ryan has equipped his vehicles with onboard conversion units about the size of a small television set. Here, the hydrogen enriching process occurs continuously, feeding into the engine on demand. The only additive required is water. I observed two vehicles running on this, and a hybrid (hydrogen and LPG) fuel source. While further developments are ongoing to perfect continuous road operation, I asked about the third major cost, building water-fuel compatible engines or converting existing ones. A standard combustion engine will run off the water fuel, a

major point of difference to the hydrogen fuel cell which powers an electric vehicle. Depending on the type, modifications to the carburettor may be necessary, and fuel injection is so far incompatible. This level of engine conversion is a far cry from the current hydrogen vehicles which price out at around $500,000 each. With minimal production, distribution and mechanical costs, Ryan believes that with support, a far cheaper version of the hydrogen economy could begin rolling out over the next decade. An obvious candidate for partnership in such a sizeable venture is the government, whose recently announced Climate Change package includes the speeding up of alternative fuel development. Ryan approached organisations within the portfolios of Research and Technology, Economic Development and the Environment, governed by Maharey, Mallard, BensonPope and Parker, outlining Biosfuel’s Greenhouse-reducing strategies. His emails and phone calls were responded to with misdirected suggestions he apply for research and development grants the company didn’t require, and that to interest the government further, he must part with his Intellectual Property. The unrealistic demands and general disinterest from government, coupled with academia’s scepticism caused Ryan to overcome his innate patriotism and begin searching offshore. His advice to anyone in his position is to waste little time knocking on Establishment doors, and to ‘go random’ instead. The ran-

The water-powered car conspiracy

he idea of a water-powered vehicle isn’t new, and in fact was patented by American inventor Stanley Meyer in 1989. Meyer claimed he could extract gas from water in a kind of catalytic conversion process using stainless steel plates immersed in water and through which electric current was passed. In physics, the process is known as electrolysis, and no one disputes that gases can be released. What they do dispute is how much energy you have to use to achieve that. Meyer claimed his invention could do it with much less power than conventional units, thereby turning water into wine, metaphorically speaking. The resulting water vapour exhaust could then be condensed back into liquid water for the fuel tank, giving you a much greater miles-to-the-gallon ratio than petrol. Despite some showings for the media, however, Meyer’s attempts to mass market his device failed when his business partners took him to court in 1996, and his technology was judged “fraudulent”, rightly or wrongly. Meyer died two years later of a cerebral aneurysm,

although conspiracy theorists believe he was assassinated. Nearly twenty years since Meyer’s dubious science made waves, researchers at institutes dotted around the world are closer to making water technology mainstream. New Scientist magazine recently reported on a collaborative effort between Minnesota University and Israel’s Weizmann Institute, wherein combustion engines were running off hydrogen made available by reacting water with the element boron. Similar to Ryan’s technique, the water has to be supplied as vapour heated to several hundred degrees. The team calculate a car would carry 18kg of boron and 45 litres of water to produce 5kg of hydrogen, having the same energy potential as 40 litres of conventional fuel. A prototype engine compatible with the new fuel is currently being developed, with a view to mass production. Even if water-powered vehicles get off the ground, so to speak, there may be a couple of other inconvenient hurdles: firstly, that much of the world is now facing water shortages, and secondly, that water vapour (cloud) is responsible for more global warming than carbon dioxide.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 39

The Ecotube, fitted.

dom approach involves casting the net wide, going global via the Internet and maximising contacts with overseas interests. Suddenly, who is interested becomes a great deal more intriguing than who is not. Since releasing water-fuel information over the Internet, Ryan has installed sophisticated tracking software to see who’s hitting the company website. The list makes for a startling read. A Who’s Who of major American corporations, Universities, Research Institutes including NASA and curiously, Military Intelligence.

he list runs to over a hundred names, among them the world’s petrochemical giants. Several keep regular tabs on Biosfuel’s progress, visiting the site monthly. Something has grabbed their attention. I ask Ryan how he thinks they came to know about a small fish way down in New Zealand? He responds that it is their business to know who is doing what in the field of energy technology. The technology Ryan claims to have puts him in a very small global group in which largely everyone knows everyone else. No one in this group has any doubt that the future of energy looks vastly different to today’s model. But the process of inching forward is a game of chess between the world’s biggest industries (and embedded governments) who do not want to lose ground, and the new players. This tussle between old and new is archaic, but the stakes have been raised from mere finan40, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007

cial interests, to the ability of our planet to survive the intent of the current regime to stay in power. The random approach also includes courting media attention by entering rallies, competitions and motor-shows both here and overseas. The Energywise Rally runs from Auckland to Wellington every second year, first prize going to the most fuel-efficient vehicle. Winning this, and Ryan had little doubt he could, would ensure a ripple of media interest. But Ryan was denied entry. In an effort to standardise competitors the rally only accepts entrants from motor vehicle companies running marketable lines of hybrid vehicles, such as Honda and Ford. Unsurprisingly, the winner of the last two races has been Ralph Simms in a VW Golf running on his own brand of biodiesel. In contrast, organisers of the motor-show Big Boys Toys were much more open to having the boys from Biosfuel present at their annual orgy of everything metallic and un-PC. BP is a major sponsor of the show and due to an earlier encounter with their research consultant, Ryan believed his entry of a DodgeRam having a custom built fuel saver, the original water powered bike now on LPG and the electric bike would be denied entry. Months earlier an oil company representative inspected the water-fuel, in regards to hydrogen power generation, acknowledging Ryan was getting higher than expected energy readings, but without being able to further conduct testing on equipment that is at present cost prohibitive to Ryan, the oil

company declined to assist further. In spite of this, Biosfuel was granted a stall that generated huge interest over the weekend, as even the highly sceptical were intrigued by the technology on show however there was no proof of the water fuel on show. Whilst the public were openly enthusiastic, by the end of the weekend it was becoming clear to Ryan that his crown jewel, the water fuel, was too difficult a barrow to push in a world so long dominated by fossil fuel energy. His failure to get recognition or support from within the industry convinced him to shift the company’s emphasis onto other technology he hoped would meet with less resistance. Foremost amongst these is the Eco Tube, a fuel saving device fitted to the car radiator hose that reduces petrol consumption by 10 to 20%. Currently in use on Super Shuttles (one at this stage with another being fitted) and monitored over several months, Ryan says the device consistently achieves savings averaging 10% with an increase in passenger loadings of 18%. In an added bonus it reduces harmful carbon emissions by 50% or more, the very thing Dr. Raine’s team of engineers are looking for and, at $400 a tube, is a much friendlier option than banning old cars from our roads. Ryan claims another fuel saver is getting reductions of closer to 40%, but will stay under wraps until negotiations with a private company are pursued. Further upstaging the work of our alternative fuel experts, Ryan had Thames’ Graham Coe install a plant that filters and blends industrial waste oil together with discarded chip shop vegetable oil, creating a ready-to-use biodiesel. Coe is a veteran of recycled oils, having produced and distributed a diesel made from old transformer oil for a number of years. As government legislation protects oil industries by preventing the use of any non-sanctioned fuels, Coe is forced to sell his diesel as heating oil, leaving it up to the purchaser whether they use it in their heater or car. Both Coe and Ryan think removing such limitations on the use of alternatives fuels would do more to weaken our fossil fuel dependence, than plans such as increasing taxation or introducing electric cars at the rate of a few dozen a year. Creating a biodiesel took Ryan a matter of weeks, costing out at around 30 cents a litre, causing him to question the necessity of growing vast oilseed crops when waste oils are abundant, with manufacturers often paying to have them removed.

longside fuel-savers and the biodiesel plant stands an odd looking contraption that Ryan seems especially pleased about. It’s a six-pack of milkcarton sized plastic cells, interconnected by wires and tubes that culminate in a brightly shining lightbulb. Each cell comprises two metals submerged in urine, giving rise to the name ‘Biological Battery’. He’s excited about it because, given the energy in = energy out requirements of thermodynamics, it’s not supposed to work. Normally batteries run off stored power and need recharging, or on catalytic reactions that expire. Once set up, the biological battery needs no further input other than urine top-ups, while providing continuous power, in the case of the six-cell at a rate of 12 volts, 1.5 amps. The battery has attracted the attention of American evolution biologist Dr. Elisabet Sahtouris whom, apart from lecturing in sustainable business practices, is a U.N. consultant for the rights and development of indigenous people. She asked if there was anything Biosfuel could contribute free of charge,

to assist developing nations. The Biological Battery was Ryan’s response. She sees the battery as a way to generate electricity in the remote rural settlements of developing nations, often denied power by usurious rates charged by foreign-owned companies. A member of Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’ fraternity, her endorsement is starting to open doors for Biosfuel within the increasingly powerful ecological lobby groups. Also interested in the battery is the Australian meat industry, investigating its potential for utilising animal stomach-content waste in place of the urine, providing an alternative to dumping now prohibited by new environmental-impact laws. The union of waste management with energy production is a dream solution for high-waste industries like abattoirs. Ryan’s random approach is winning connections from the pragmatic business sphere where results count more than science. The only relevant questions here are; does it work and will it save money? In an unexpected honour, Ryan was recently invited to join a Swiss association formed in 1980 to promote and develop ecological vehicles and renewable energy. Members are entitled to have their research peer reviewed by an impressive line-up of research scientists. Professor Ahmed Masmoudi, chairman of the International Conference and Exhibition on Ecological Vehicles and Renewable Energies was impressed enough by Ryan’s submission to invite him to speak at this year’s conference in Monaco. As many leaders within the energy industry will be present Ryan is confident of making useful connections and is prepared to move his operation anywhere in the world if necessary. But the fish Ryan is most keen to land is reminiscent of Burt Munro’s Fastest Indian, and explains the shiny red Corvette languishing under tarpaulin in a corner of the lab. It’s an American race called the Auto X Prize, funded by big names like Google with an unbelievable first prize of US$25 million for the car that travels furthest, fastest, on the least-polluting fuel. The goal is 250 Mpg on Gasoline. Knowing most competitors will enter lightweight, aerodynamic contraptions he welcomes the spectacle of lining up with a Corvette ready to run at full speed. He’s been granted preliminary entry by a senior official of the 2007/2008 race, however is awaiting the release of the rules and official entry to be open. A coup considering the number of times his attempts to enter NZ and international competitions have been declined due to frustrating technicalities within entry regulations, and organisers unwilling to widen the criteria to include independents. Ryan believes the media attention earned by winning or participating in major competitions will effectively force the hand of industrialists by bringing to public attention the existence of real alternatives to our global fossil-fuel headache. He hopes public awareness will be the pressure that breaks through the stopbanks keeping Biosfuel out of contention in the world’s biggest commercial market. His is far from the first company to take the oil giants on and even those within the industry, including the CEO of Toyota USA, admit the difficulty lies not in the creation of alternatives, but in gaining a slice of the market so well cornered by corporations. Ryan’s view is philosophical, he’s aware what Biosfuel is up against and is in it for the long haul, claiming he’s “too stubborn to give up”. He believes success lies in understanding how others before him have tried and failed, and by doing things differently. INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 41

NUCLEAR

ARMS IN THE MIDDLE

EAST AND WHAT IT COULD MEAN FOR NEW ZEALAND

When Prime Minister Helen Clark meets President Bush shortly at the White House, one of the main topics on the agenda will be Iran. In a world weary with the Iraq conflict there’s little stomach, and likely to be strong public opposition, to engaging in a new battle with Iran. But as IAN WISHART notes in this analysis, the cost of allowing volatile state to go nuclear is too horrendous to ignore:

magine this as a nightmare scenario: a container ship plying a routine shipping lane approaches America’s east coast. As the sun sets in the west the ship’s crew, young Muslims, gather for evening prayers on the deck. But tonight there’s a different mood on the ship, an electric excitement. One man, 19 if he’s a day, waves a video camera around, recording speeches by each of the 18 crew, testimonies to their loved ones and, later, the world.

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“Allahu akbar!” – God is great, the cry rings out, startling a gull on the railing. Then, from the bowels of the ship, the grinding of winches and gears as an object emerges from the hold and locks into position, a modified intercontinental ballistic missile carrying a nuclear warhead. Seconds later, the device is airborne, streaking towards the horizon leaving a slowly dispersing plume of exhaust gas in its wake. Back on deck, the video testimonies, including footage of the missile launch, are already being relayed via an al Jazeera satellite orbiting far above, ready to tell the story to a world that

Iran test firing nuclear-capable Shahab-3 long range variants in November. PHOTO: UPI

doesn’t yet know what’s been unleashed. They won’t have to wait long. With a range of 2,000 kilometres carrying a one-tonne payload, the modified Shahab-3 Iranian missile could travel the length of New Zealand in just three minutes – not three hours like an airliner, three minutes. Far above the city of New York, residents look up at what they think is a meteorite’s trail until suddenly there’s a blinding flash. All around them, lights go out. Computers stop, car engines seize and die. Life support units in hospital wards go

blank leaving critically injured patients gasping like fish on a beach. Elevators grind to a halt, the power is down. Those who were looking skyward at the time of the flash will be, at the very least, temporarily blinded. There is chaos in the streets, but there is no radio, no TV and no cellphone or phone coverage. New York has just been returned to the 19th century, a time before cars and electricity were invented. Seven minutes have passed. Seven minutes of hell, confusion and tragedy at the intersections where vehicles smashed into each other and pedestrians. Some, assuming it is the end of the INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 43

world, are praying on the sidewalk in groups. Then, after seven stressful minutes, the biggest explosion they have ever heard shatters windows and bursts eardrums, as it buffets New York in a cacophony of destructive energy. It has taken seven minutes for the soundwaves from the nuclear explosion far above them to reach the ground. It is not just New York. In Washington DC, Boston, Montreal and Miami, the scenes are equally primal. Over the next few hours and days radioactive rain and dust will fall, but few people will die of radiation in the short term. Most will develop cancers and other illnesses over the coming years. By far the biggest loss of life is in the air – nearly 5,000 passenger aircraft (including several from New Zealand) carrying more than a quarter of a million people were airborne across the US at the moment the blast hit. With their avionics, engines and life support systems burnt out, the state of the art jetliners became nothing more than winged coffins, plunging and tumbling towards the ground. All are victims of a new form of nuclear warfare – the ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack.

f the above scenario sounds far-fetched and fanciful to you, here’s a reality check. It is not only technologically possible, it has probably already passed through the crucial threshold of, not “if”, but “when?”. The phenomenon of electromagnetic pulse as a side effect of nuclear blasts was discovered decades ago, but back then most of the military scientific research focused on maximizing the nuclear blast direct on a target to kill as many people and level as much infrastructure as possible; side effects were not really the primary issue. According to US former defence intelligence analyst turned evangelist Chuck Missler, who’s just concluded a speaking tour of NZ and Australia, the EMP threat is something we should have paid attention to. “One of the scary discoveries is the threat of electromagnetic pulse. We’ve known for many years, obviously, that Israel is really a one bomb country – one nuke over Tel Aviv and it’s over. What is a shock to discover is that the United States is also vulnerable to a single nuclear warhead,” explains Missler. “There was a commission set up by Congress, to assess the vulnerability of the United States to electromagnetic pulse attacks, and they published their report. It was a blue ribbon panel of about a dozen of our top scientists, who published their report in July of 2004, which happened to be the same month that the 9/11 commission published its report, and that of course is what the press jumped on. However, anyone who gets on the Internet can read the report, by searching for the electromagnetic pulse commission’s report. “That report points out that one nuke detonated say 100 miles – at very high altitude – over the United States would plunge the United States back to the 19th century, simply because the electromagnetic pulse would disable permanently the telecommunications circuits and the power grid. So if that were to happen, of course, the infrastructure collapse in big cities, and in terms of public health, water, terms of law enforcement, and so on, would create a state of pandemonium. It would literally take the United States out of the picture as a major world power.” To give you some idea of the scale of the trauma, the infra-

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structure that makes the United States a first world power would be out of action for months, possibly even a year or more in some cases. After all, the equipment you would normally use to repair power stations, phone systems and electronic equipment is itself electronic, and probably useless. “Once an EMP attack occurs,” says Missler, “you can no longer put in place a recovery plan. Your recovery plan, whatever it is, has to be in place before the attack, because you lose your ability to put it in place after the attack. When we were hit by Hurricane Katrina, some time ago, we discovered a lot of things. For example, how do you pump gas at a gas station if there is no power? How do you send an ambulance downtown, if there’s gridlock because the signals are not working? You begin to realise that these various infrastructure systems are all interdependent on one another, and so the jeopardy of the major metropolitan areas, and thus most of the population, is very very serious. All of this leads to the view that you cannot let this happen. And if it’s going to happen, you’ve got to pre-empt that somehow.” It was just such a pre-emptive strike that still has the Bush administration on the political ropes four years later. When the US attacked Iraq in 2003, it was this fear of a weapon of mass destruction falling into the wrong hands that drove US policy. But while Saddam Hussein was making all the running in hot air terms – boasting about what he might or might not have hidden away, it seems the US missed the bigger threat sitting just over the border – the People’s Republic of Iran. Unlike the Iraqi evidence, which turned out to be several years out of date, there is absolutely no doubt, publicly or privately, that Iran is working on a nuclear programme. The only doubt is over whether the programme is peaceful or military. Iran and its supporters claim the former, but there is good reason to believe the latter. The evidence is two-fold: firstly, in the nature of activities being undertaken by Iran, including test-firing ballistic missiles from the decks of cargo ships in the Caspian sea, as reported by the respected Jane’s periodical: “The May edition of Jane’s Missiles and Rockets reports that recent missile tests by Iran may have been part of the development of an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) warhead. Jane’s cites testimony from the Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security from March 8, 2005, by Peter Pry and Lowell Wood. Wood is a member of the Congressional EMP Commission, which released its important report on the EMP threat in July 2004. “Some of Iran’s tests of its Shahab-3 had been terminated before the completion of their ballistic trajectories, that is, exploding in mid-flight by what appeared to be a self-destruct mechanism. Iran has nevertheless described the tests as fully “successful.” Pry noted that the apparent contradiction would make sense “if Iran were practicing the execution of an EMP attack.” Lowell Wood is quoted as having testified to the subcommittee that such an attack upon the United States could keep off most electrical functions for a time period of a few hours or decades, depending on how it was executed. Wood also warned the subcommittee that such an EMP warhead could be delivered against the United States by “a Scud missile launched from a freighter off the Atlantic coast.” The second piece of evidence suggesting a military motive

is religious – Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is on record, repeatedly, as suggesting Iranians should be ready in the near future to play a key role in the battle of Armageddon. Ahmadinejad is firmly convinced the return of Islam’s final prophet, the Mahdi, is imminent and that it must occur at a time of nuclear confrontation. “Ahmadinejad of Iran is very, very candid,” says Chuck Missler, “that he is driven by his eschatology, that is his theological beliefs about the end times, and he believes that his destiny is to usher in the Islamic view of doomsday, so to speak. That’s a scary agenda for someone who can put his finger on the button. “Ahmadinejad has the mentality of a suicide bomber, he is perfectly willing to sacrifice Iran for the cause of Islam. He regards Islam as the issue, not Iran. And that’s worrying, to have someone in an official powerful position with that mindset.” The West has already seen what the mentality of martyrdom can do for Islam, and when young Muslims are repeatedly taught that death in jihad grants automatic access to paradise, the principle can be applied equally well at state level, not just for individuals but the entire population: sacrifice in the name of Allah is a destiny to be sought, not feared. On that basis, argues Missler, can the West trust Iran not to put its nuclear material to military use? “Clearly, Iran is seeking weapons grade material, because the sites, and there is over a dozen of them involved, are all heavy water sites, and that’s for plutonium, weapons grade plutonium. It has nothing to do with Bushehr, which is a uranium power station. It’s just a cover story. The real goal, of course, is a weapons grade capability. Ahmadinejad has been very candid in his speeches, that his goal is to wipe Israel off the map, and when the Majlis – the Iranian parliament – voted on the

Speculation rages: is Iran Bush’s next target?

Ron Hutcheson and Warren P. Strobel argue “Yes”

ASHINGTON – President Bush says he isn’t looking for a fight, but the question won’t go away: Is the United States headed for war with Iran’s Islamic rulers? Increasing tensions with Iran over its nuclear program and actions in Iraq have fueled speculation that Bush may be paving the way for military action. With U.S. forces tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan, no one expects a ground invasion, but analysts at both ends of the political spectrum put little stock in Bush’s insistence that he’s focused only on diplomacy. “I still believe, at the end of the day, that he will bomb the Iranian (nuclear) facilities,” says Joshua Muravchik, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank with close ties to the Bush administration. Muravchik, who favors military action, sees Bush’s current focus on diplomacy as a prelude to attack. “When he does it – if he does it – it will be wildly unpopular. He certainly at least wants to be able to say convincingly, `I tried everything else,’” Muravchik says.

Bush bristles at suggestions that he wants a confrontation. He and his advisers describe U.S. policy as a carrot-and-stick approach that uses the threat of military action to create diplomatic leverage. The goal is to encourage internal dissent in Iran and force the government to take a more moderate approach. “Our policies are all aimed at convincing the Iranian people there’s a better way forward, and I hope their government hears that message,” Bush said at a Feb. 14 news conference. “We’ll continue to try to solve the issue peacefully.” The next day, a frustrated Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared, “For the umpteenth time, we are not looking for an excuse to go to war with Iran.” The strategy could backfire, however, if U.S. pressure prompts Iranians to coalesce behind their leaders instead of encouraging dissent. Moreover, Iran has signaled that it has tools of its own, such as planning war games in the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for half the world’s oil; improving relations with Russia and China; and stepping up support for militant Shiite Muslims in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Skeptics note that Bush also stressed diplomacy in the runup to the Iraq war, declaring his peaceful intentions even as he prepared for the 2003 invasion. “I don’t have any war plans on my desk,” he told reporters during a visit to France on May 26, 2002. While that may have INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 45

been technically correct, Bush already had received a series of briefings on invasion plans, including one about two weeks before his European trip. In recent months, the Bush administration has ratcheted up pressure against Iran. It has: J Dispatched a second aircraft carrier strike group to patrol the Persian Gulf and sent Patriot anti-missile missiles to Arab allies bordering the Gulf. J Expanded operations against alleged Iranian networks operating in Iraq, conducting two raids, one involving U.S. soldiers snatching Iranians said to be members of the al Quds paramilitary force. J Accused Iran of supplying roadside bombs to Iraqi insurgents and vowed to stop the shipments. J Moved to bolster the government of Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora with money and military supplies in a proxy struggle with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist group. J Launched an aggressive financial campaign against Iran to curb its access to the international financial system, freezing bank funds and barring U.S. transactions with various entities. Last week the Treasury Department added Hezbollah’s construction arm, Jihad al Bina, to a roster of blacklisted banks. A senior U.S. official said in an interview that Bush is seeking to increase pressure on Iran to change its behavior, but isn’t trying to spark a military confrontation. European and Arab diplomats say they’ve sought and received assurances that the United States isn’t planning war against Iran. “They have told us there are no plans to attack Iran,” says Nabil Fahmy, Egypt’s ambassador in Washington. Fahmy says that while Iran must address concerns about its nuclear program, the Middle East needs less conflict, not more. U.S. officials from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on down say the pressure on Iran is producing results. They cite a growing debate in Iran over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s performance, the country’s economic doldrums and the poor showing of

Ahmadinejad’s supporters in December’s local elections. Still, Ahmadinejad has remained defiant on the nuclear issue, ignoring a Feb. 21 U.N. deadline to halt uranium enrichment. He says Iran is interested only in nuclear power generation. U.S. officials believe Iran is using its civilian nuclear industry as cover for a weapons program. “The free world is sending the regime in Tehran a clear message: We’re not going to allow Iran to have nuclear weapons,”’ Bush told an American Legion convention last February. So what happens if threats and diplomacy fail? It’s a question that administration officials don’t want to answer. Iran isn’t believed to be on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons, but some analysts – and Israelis – worry that it could soon reach a point where its program will be hard to stop without military strikes. “We have got time,” Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, the No. 3 State Department official, said at a recent forum. “There is no one arguing, that I know of, inside the administration or outside, to the effect that we have to exhaust diplomacy in the next few months.” But Bush has two more years in the White House, and he may not want to leave the Iranian problem to the next president. “We may be talking about decisions the president has not yet made, but may yet make before his two years are up,” says Paul Pillar, a retired senior CIA analyst who’s now a Georgetown University professor. “In military terms, in political terms, the stage is being set,” argues retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner, a frequent administration critic. “The path is toward the military option, although a decision, I don’t think, has been made.” Some analysts fear that heightened tensions could lead to military action whether Bush wants it or not. In 1988, during a tense period of the Iran-Iraq War, the guided-missile cruiser USS Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing all 290 people aboard. “In the current climate, there’s a substantial risk of things escalating out of control,” Pillar says.

nuclear programme. 247 of the 290 members of Parliament voted by standing up and shouting ‘death to the United States, death to Israel’. “Most Americans presume that somehow Israel will preempt this, and I think most Israelis assume that somehow the US will pre-empt it, but meanwhile, the intelligence services – the Mossad, Shin-bet and some of the others – they estimate that it is a matter of months not years, before Iran has the capability that they are seeking,” says Missler. Of even more embarrassment to the US, some of the missile technology now being deployed by the Iranians has been traced as based on American technology supplied to China by the Democrats when Bill Clinton was president. China, North Korea and Russia are heavily involved in the Iranian buildup. So the question again arises, should New Zealand support, even if only morally, a US or Israeli pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities? The question is far more complex than it may appear. On the one hand, as many on the Left point out, Iran has committed no crime at this point warranting international attack. It should be free to pursue a peaceful nuclear power

programme without interference from the West. On the other hand, sitting as it does on some of the world’s largest oilfields, why would Iran need nuclear power in a land where oil is cheaper than water? And the West cut Hitler some slack, with Chamberlain’s famous “Peace for our Time” declaration, only to discover the extra time gave Hitler the opportunity to build a formidable military capacity and launch blitzkrieg surprise attacks. If Britain had taken Hitler’s rhetoric seriously, argue critics, instead of shying away from pre-emptive military action, 50 million lives might have been saved. But there’s another angle that no other media have focused on yet: the economic price. If Iran, or a terror organization like al Qa’ida using Iranian, North Korean or old Soviet missile technology, were to launch a successful EMP attack on the United States, the economic effects would hit every single household in New Zealand, and the rest of the West, harder than any other financial burden outside of a fully-engaged wartime economy. As New Zealand’s second largest trading partner, the United States is a huge market for New Zealand goods and services. With US computer networks, power stations and phone

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systems shut down for months or years, you can kiss goodbye to the boom times and say hello to the biggest financial depression the world has ever seen.

hen you can factor in the tragedy. An EMP strike 160kms out in space would knock out every airliner with a line of sight to the blast, meaning many trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific flights. The scale of loss of life of New Zealanders would make the Erebus disaster look small. The psychological impact of such an attack would dwarf the effects of 9/11. Then you can factor in the retaliation. During the Cold War years, the US ensured that its nuclear arsenal and command and control facilities were shielded from any potential EMP caused by a Russian first strike. Additionally, the strategic nuclear submarine fleet that cruises the world 24/7, hiding in magnetic anomaly areas like the one off New Zealand’s Fiordland coast, are capable of launching a retaliatory strike if required. You can take it as read that an atmospheric nuke over North America causing 5,000 airliner crashes, more than 250,000 fatalities and immeasurable chaos on the ground would likely be met with the launch of a full nuclear strike against every populated city in Iran, if not some neighbouring states like Syria as well. The death toll would climb into the millions, if not tens of millions. An itchy trigger finger in the US (as much of its conventional military would be out of action) would mean a much greater readiness to launch a nuclear strike against anyone vaguely threatening or looking like they might try taking advantage of a crippled America. With America gravely wounded, Israel would be releasing the safety catch on its 400 nuclear missiles – distances in the Middle East mean advance warning is measured in seconds, rather than minutes. This, of course, assumes that Iran doesn’t try an EMP attack on Israel simultaneous with the US strike. Says Chuck Missler: “Most people are really unaware of the nature of the tensions that are brewing, but people in the strategic arena are very sensitive to the fact that we have nuclear weapons increasingly being proliferated. The nightmare scenario of 50 years ago was called the Nth country problem, back in those days there were only two players, they were both in balance, and they were both rational. The United States could count on the Soviet Union doing whatever was in its own best interests, so it was a rational environment. Today, we have not two players, we got over a dozen – frankly – and they are not in balance. There is a race going on. So the real issue is, how do you have what we call a chicken race with someone who believes he goes to heaven if he loses? So it is a tense time.” There is some suggestion that America’s tough talk against Iran, and rumoured threats of a pre-emptive strike, may be having some slight affect against Ahmadinejad domestically in Iran, particularly after late February’s speech where he described Iran’s nuclear programme as a runaway train, “with no brake and no reverse gear”. Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported those comments had alarmed some Iranians: “Mohammad Atrianfar, a respected political commentator, accused the president of using ‘the language of the bazaar’ and said his comments had made it harder for Ali Larijani,

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the country’s top nuclear negotiator, to reach a compromise with European diplomats. ... ‘This rhetoric is not suitable for a president and has no place in diplomatic circles,’ said Mr Atrianfar, a confidant of Hashemi Rafsanjani, an influential regime insider and rival of Mr Ahmadinejad. ‘It is the language people in the bazaar and alleyways use to address the simplest issues of life’.” Associated Press reported Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, was less than impressed as well, although some Iranian commentators put that down to Ahmadinejad’s economic policies, rather than foreign policy. Still, as Iranian author Amir Taheri wrote in a commentary for the Gulf News of the United Arab Emirates, “the nuclear issue has become a regime change issue” in Iran, and its outcome will radically change the course of the country. “If [Ahmadinejad’s] Khomeinist regime emerges victorious from the current confrontation, it would move to a higher degree of radicalism, thus, in effect, becoming a new regime. “The radical faction would be able to purge the rich and corrupt mullahs by promoting a new generation of zealots linked with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard and the security services. It would also move onto the offensive in the region, seeking to reshape it after the Khomeinist revolution’s geo-strategic interests. “If, on the other hand, the Khomeinist regime is forced to back down on this issue, the radical moment would fade, while the many enemies of the regime regroup to either topple it or change it beyond recognition as Deng Xiao-ping did with the Maoist regime in China.” But the Bush administration’s rhetoric will have to convince more than just a few religiously liberal journalists and commentators if it is to have any effect, and so far Iran is showing no sign of pulling back from the brink. As a former intelligence analyst specializing in guided missiles, Missler’s views on Iran are pessimistic, given the upsurge in radical Islam throughout the Middle East. “In very real terms, Iran represents a much more serious proximate threat to the United States than Iraq did. When they were broke it wasn’t a problem, but now they’ve got oil revenues and nuclear weapons it is a whole different ball game. “Clearly the United States has got her hands full with the Iraq mess on the one hand and a growing serious threat of Iran on the other, but who knows, I think the next 6 months to a year is going to be more turbulent than most people have any idea.” Missler’s views as a Christian evangelist are also resonating with the public, he says, and they include the key role that Iran (Persia) plays in a dramatic future battle outlined in Ezekiel 38 and 39, in the Bible. Missler’s public meetings in Australasia have coincided with the latest ratcheting up of the nuclear tension, and “I’ve been getting standing room only at some of the meetings,” he says. So, in asking the question again, is a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities something the West should contemplate, or should we, like New Zealand’s position on the Ruapehu Lahar, allow nature to take its course even if it means a greater loss of life down the track? There is good reason to believe that public opinion inertia, coupled with a strong PR push by the AntiWar movement, will prevent both the United Nations and the US from making a decision in time. Better start stocking up that bird flu cupboard again…

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UPI Intelligence Analysis

THE RACE TO RE-ARM

Joshua Brilliant discovers a major military build-up in the Middle East

ix months after the attacks against Lebanon, Syria, Hezbollah and Israel are all beefing up their forces, preparing for another round of hostilities though none seem imminent. The Haaretz newspaper reports that the Syrian armed forces are being strengthened in an unprecedented way in recent memory. The emphasis is on bolstering its missile and long-range rocket capability, the newspaper said. The Syrians recently test-fired two Scud-D ballistic missiles whose range would reach most of Israel. Syria has also shorter range rockets and supplied many of them to the Lebanese Hezbollah (that fired 4,000 rockets during the war). The missiles and rockets are part of an effort to compensate for the obvious weakness of the Syrian air force. This way Syrians could strike Israeli cities and also carry out accurate attacks against military targets inside the country, Haaretz’ defense expert Zeev Schiff wrote. Information received in Israel recently says that Damascus is about to conclude a deal under which it would buy thousands of advanced Russian anti-tank missiles, Haaretz added. Earlier shipments of Kornet AT-14 and Metis AT-13 anti tank missiles to Syria were passed on to Hezbollah and some penetrated the armor of Israel’s most advanced tanks, the Markava Mark IV. Schiff did not identify his sources. However his report, and another on Hezbollah’s buildup by Yediot Aharonot’s military commentator Alex Fishman, immediately followed a military intelligence briefing to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. According to intelligence leaked to Yediot Aharonot, Hezbollah has more than 10,000 short range rockets in southern Lebanon and more are being smuggled from Syria. The Lebanon war proved that a continuous barrage of such rockets has a strategic impact. According to Yediot Aharonot’s sources, Hezbollah realized that its daily barrage of 250 rockets was insufficient and it would like to double or treble that number. Some weapons reach Hezbollah from Iran via Syria. The shipments are flown to Syria through Turkish airspace and the Israelis suspect some are transported by trucks, also via Turkey. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert raised the matter in his talks in Ankara last month and his interlocutors maintained they were not aware of it, a senior official on Olmert’s plane told United Press International. Olmert intends to pursue the matter. Retired Maj. Gen. Yaakov Amidror, who headed a team that investigated the military intelligence performance before and

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after the war, told UPI the weapons reach Hezbollah, “Slowly so as not to worsen the atmosphere. The shipments violate the United Nations’ Security Council’s resolution,” he notes. Hezbollah needs, however, time to recruit new people and train them, sometimes in Iran. “It is returning to southern Lebanon but is keeping a lower profile, in civvies,” he says. According to Yediot Aharonot Hezbollah is gradually rebuilding its bunkers, rocket launching sites and command and control centers. However with the reinforced UNIFIL peacekeepers around, and the Lebanese army troops reaching the Israeli border, Hezbollah has more difficulties gathering intelligence on Israel. One of the consequences of last year’s war is that Israel’s deterrence has been eroded. Amidror says the Syrians have begun thinking that perhaps it is possible to fight Israel. Moreover, Iran whose help to Syria had been minor, is now willing to provide more significant help. “Tehran changed its attitude because it is facing the United States,” Amidror says. “However, Syria’s significant missile buildup still does not alter some basic flaws in its air and armored forces,” he continues. Defense experts do not expect new hostilities in the spring or summer. The head of the Defense Minister’s DiplomaticSecurity Staff, Maj. Gen. in the reserves Amos Gilad, says there are no signs of any Syrians or Hezbollah preparations for attack in the coming months. “Once Hezbollah resumes provocations, however, we shall have to take the Syria army’s capabilities into account,” Gilad says. “Syria is building its forces for the long run,” he adds. The Israeli military has meanwhile analyzed its mistakes during the war, the chief of general staff and two other generals resigned, Israel is acquiring more military hardware and enhancing the capabilities of its Arrow anti-ballistic missile that should stop the Syrian Scuds and Iranian Shahabs. One of the main flaws discovered in the last war was that its army hasn’t trained properly because so much effort was invested in policing the occupied territories. That too is changing. This month the paratroop brigade had an extensive exercise on the Golan Heights, a possible battlefield with Syria. For five years there hasn’t been such an exercise and some of the army’s senior commanders lacked experience in managing big forces. Defense Minister Amir Peretz, who watched those maneuvers, describes them as, “a very significant beginning of implementing the army’s work plan for 2007 that focuses on training the standing army and later the reserves”.

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r o f G N I DY ANSWERS

Is over-protectiveness killing us softly with its song?

New Zealandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s suicide rates are not something to be proud of. That an affluent Western nation can have a suicide rate far in advance of third world societies like the Philippines, where life really is desperate, suggests we have a big problem, as DANIELLE MURRAY explains.

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INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 53

t’s been 25 years since Walter Smith took his own life, upstairs, alone in his bed. Cause of death was asphyxiation. It sounds so simple but it wasn’t. Mr Smith put a lot of thought into how he was going to die. Unfortunately, in his single-minded determination, he gave little consideration to the fact that when he did finally carry out his plan, his ten year old son, as usual, would be on his way home from school. No, Billy Smith did not find his father dead. Suddenly light-headed, he lay down to sleep on the sofa. Had his mother not finished work early and come home unexpectedly, Billy too, would have died that day. Cause of death? The same as his father – asphyxiation. I was seventeen years old when Mr Smith committed suicide. And though I barely knew him, his death profoundly affected my life. His daughter was my closest friend, buddies since Tannis and her family moved into the house next door when we were both four years old. We’d gone to kindergarten together, learned to ride our bikes together, got our driver’s licence on the same day, and somehow, managed to survive high school intact, still the best of friends. And though I seemed to spend as much time at her house as she did mine, I never really knew her father. Mr Smith was an enigma, off to work before we were out of bed and home after dark. On the few occasions I do remember seeing him, I don’t recall seeing him smile. There are many reasons why people kill themselves. Mr Smith’s apparently all came down to money. At least that’s what the note said. The son of a self-made millionaire, he had come on hard times and single-handedly destroyed the empire his long dead father had so cleverly built up. Not only was Mr Smith broke, he felt himself a failure. His fortune had been handed to him on a silver platter and he had squandered the whole lot and was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. In his wake were two teenage daughters, little Billy and a 45 year-old grieving widow who, until then, had no idea of their financial troubles. She refused to declare bankruptcy. Within weeks, she had closed the business and sold the house. By years end, she had had paid off all her husband’s creditors and bought a new but much smaller home out of province. In their new location, no one knew their story and no one knew their pain. You couldn’t see it. And in the days when suicide was a taboo subject, they didn’t talk about it. But the pain – and the shame – was never far away.

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And while these days, suicide has come out of the closet, for those left behind the shock is no less genuine, the grief no less real. And yet, the fact that people can talk about it has done little to alleviate its occurrence. We’ve all heard the statistics – New Zealand is right up there on the world stage. Among selected OECD countries, males take sixth place, females come in fourth. Youth suicide rates have doubled since 1985. In 1995, New Zealand had the highest rate for the 15-24 year old age group in OECD countries. We know it’s on the increase but what we don’t really know is why. Increasing rates of substance abuse and depression may be to blame, along with mounting violence and child and sexual abuse. Higher unemployment, the breakdown of the family and the move away from organised religion and cultural alienation may also have an effect. The fact that our society and its

people are becoming more individually oriented doesn’t help much either. Even the media can have an influence. According to some studies, coverage of suicide in the news or on a television programme may lead to both copycat suicides and suicide clusters. Wellington coroner Garry Evans recently suggested another possible factor. As society becomes increasingly over-protective of its children, shielding them from failure, we are not giving them the life-lessons they need when things get a bit difficult. And for some, when things do get a bit difficult, they turn to suicide. 515 New Zealanders killed themselves in 2003, the most recent year on record. In 2002, the number was 465. (Subject to revision as required) Behind each and every one of them is a different story. And behind each individual story, a mother, father, partner our spouse, son or daughter, sister, brother, grand-

mother, grandfather, aunt, uncle, cousin or friend with a story of their own – and whose life will never be the same. “There are fifty million questions,” says Nicky, whose 32 yearold cousin killed himself ten years ago. “And no answers.” Ted was married with two young sons. He was going through a divorce, suffered from schizophrenia and was struggling financially. But while he clearly felt his world crumbling around him, he never let on. His death came as a complete surprise. “It put most of us all in shell shock for at least a year, ”says Nicky. “Somehow you think it’s your fault.” Neither his mother nor sole surviving sibling ever recovered. His mum died last year, his sister is still coping with the fallout. “They were very close. She feels she should have known, that he could have trusted her,” says Nicky. INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 55

“She still can’t talk about it without bursting into tears.” Her grief however, remains private because of her shame. Though younger generations talk about it freely, Nicky says for Ted’s older sister, who is now in her fifties, “it is not a thing to be proud of.” But 38 year-old Jen feels no shame in her sister’s death fifteen years ago. When it happened, her family was very upfront about it. It was just easier that way. Briar was just 22 years old when she took her life one late spring day in 1991. Jen remembers it like it was yesterday. She died on a Thursday. Her body was found on a Friday. Jen last talked to her on Wednesday afternoon. The sisters were just 15 months apart in age and had always been very close. They had the occasional argument, she says, but nothing major. “We were really good friends.”

ut despite their strong bond and a close loving family, Briar was in trouble. She’d always been very emotional and felt things deeply. She was extremely intelligent, always had high marks in school and had been voted “most likely to succeed” in her final year. “But she hated not doing things really well,” says Jen. “She was a perfectionist.” Looking back, Jen can’t quite pinpoint when things started to go wrong. Briar was increasingly unhappy and before her death, had attempted suicide twice before. She sought help and was admitted to a private psychiatric hos56, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007

pital. But doctors there were unable to diagnose her problem, and she died in their care. To this day, neither Jen nor her family know the cause of Briar’s ailment – only that she was clearly ill. And that she too, had a plan. “It was very calculated,” says Jen. In the fortnight before her death, Briar paid a farewell visit to all her friends. It was only later, after the funeral was over, that they all grasped the purpose of her final visit. “In hindsight, we realised she was getting all her affairs in order – without people realising what she was doing.” But with her little sister dead, Jen’s world fell apart. Her family was in shock and her parents were completely devastated. “It destroyed their lives,” she says. Though Jen and her mother still talk about Briar freely, older brother Luke hardly ever mentions her name. “He can’t talk about her.” And years later, Jen still can’t talk about her sister without sadness. She feels no guilt and never asked herself “what if” but that doesn’t make accepting what happened any easier. And even that she says, took a long long time. “Briar won’t grow old, but that was her choice,” she says. “We have to accept what happened, we can’t change it.” She’s not even mad at her. She never was, but she can get annoyed. Annoyed that “she’s not here.” And annoyed that while Briar is still a huge part of Jen’s life, neither her husband or her children will ever know her. And she says that while acceptance is possible, so-called “closure” is not. “When I’m dead and I don’t have to think about it, that’s

when I’ll have closure – it will only go away when I go.” “There’s just always something missing,” she says. Tannis too, has lived her life in the knowledge that something has been amiss. As I reflect on Mr Smith’s life, I now know that his troubles were greater than financial. It was only later, talking to Tannis’ mum, that I learned her dad has struggled with depression for many years. And losing his fortune apparently sent him over the edge. Within a year of her father’s death, Tannis was back in town, living with cousins. But more than ever before, she became a fixture in my home. It was as if in my family, she could escape the pain of her own. Long after I moved out, she continued to visit my parents every weekend. I think she found it therapeutic. We remain good friends – bonded by our childhood and an experience that touched us both deeply and yet differently. I often thought I understood what she was going through but now I know I never could – it wasn’t my dad who decided life wasn’t worth living, that his kids weren’t reason enough. I’ve moved on in a way Tannis never could. Tannis now runs her own successful company and is married to a lovely man. They have three sons. Her mother lives on a small farm surrounded by her animals. She never remarried. Her sister Kate and her family live nearby. Little Billy grew up, went on to get his law degree and also settled down. Last year, his wife gave birth to twin girls. They are all happy and well adjusted and yet dig beneath the surface and you will see a sense of betrayal, guilt and loss that will never subside. And for Tannis, now in her forties, there’s anger no amount of therapy will ever cure.

“We’ve all heard the statistics – New Zealand is right up there on the world stage. Among selected OECD countries, males take sixth place, females come in fourth. Youth suicide rates have doubled since 1985. In 1995, New Zealand had the highest rate for the 15-24 year old age group in OECD countries” “He should have been there,” she says. And twenty five years on, as I think about Walter Smith and what he missed out on, the high school graduations, the university graduations, the weddings, the births of grandchildren, all the good things in life and yes, even the not so good, I can only wonder… what is really worth it? Jen too, wonders if it was worth it. “It’s almost too hard to think about what might have been.”

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INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 57

Horns of a DILEMMA

The real cost of a cashmere sweater

When you buy a cheap cashmere garment, spare a thought for what it’s doing to the world. EVAN OSNOS reports

N THE ALASHAN PLATEAU, China – Shatar the herdsman squints into the twilight on the ruined grasslands where Genghis Khan once galloped. He frowns and calls his goats. The wind tastes like dust. On the other side of the world, another morning dawns in the historic embrace between the world’s low-cost factory and its best customer. Every minute of every day last year, America gobbled up US$463,200 worth of Chinese goods – including millions of cashmere sweaters made from the hair of goats like Shatar’s. In less than a decade, a deluge of cheap cashmere from China has transformed a centuries-old industry, stripping the plush

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fabric of its pricey pedigree and making it available in big-box Western department stores. Chinese-made cashmere sweaters now go for as little as US$19.99. But behind the inexpensive Made in China tag is something westerners rarely see: the cascade of consequences around the world when the full might of Chinese production and western consumption converge on a scarce natural resource. With all the grand ways to measure the impact of China’s ascent – the mountains of exports, the armadas of oil tankers – there might seem little reason to take stock of a commodity as innocuous as cashmere. Yet the improbable connection between cheap sweaters, Asia’s prairies and America’s air captures how the most ordinary shifts in the global economy are triggering extraordinary change.

WORLDBRIEF

Shatar feeds his goats in what was once green pasture. PHOTO: Chicago Tribune

This is the story of how your sweater pollutes the air you breathe – and how the rise of China shapes the world. The country’s enormous herds of cashmere-producing goats have slashed the price of sweaters. But they also have helped graze Chinese grasslands down to a moonscape, unleashing some of the worst dust storms on record. This in turn fuels a plume of pollution heavy enough to reach the skies over North America. China’s breakneck consumption of raw materials is part of an economic revolution that has lifted 400 million Chinese out of poverty but at a growing environmental cost around the globe. And with their burgeoning appetite for Chinese goods, western consumers have become crucial if unwitting partners, financing the political survival of Beijing’s one-party regime. Not only has China’s demand for resources proved strong

enough to turn its grasslands into a dust bowl, it has driven illegal logging into prized tropical forests and restaged a risky Great Game for control of vital oil supplies. Every product – every T-shirt, every SUV, every child’s toy – has a global footprint defined by the resources and energy used to make it. In the case of cashmere, America snapped up a record-smashing 10.5 million Chinese sweaters last year, 15 times as many as a decade ago, and far more than every cashmere sweater imported last year from Italy and the United Kingdom combined. As goats go, Shatar’s are thoroughbreds – crystal-white coats, pure bloodlines and the durability to withstand China’s punishing north, where summer boils to 42 degrees and winter sinks to 36 degrees below zero. Straddling the Mongolian border, far from China’s throbbing cities, the Alashan Plateau produces the world’s most expensive cashmere – that downy underlayer of a goat’s hair that sells for at least six times the price of ordinary wool. Side by side under a microscope, Alashan cashmere makes a single human hair look like rope. Shatar, 51, who like most Chinese nomads uses one name, grew up here. He has ridden two decades of China’s cashmere boom, enlarging his herd by one-third, to more than 300, and steadily pushing production. The profits have given him a small three-room house and paid for his daughter’s college education. But something in Alashan has gone wrong. Shatar calls his goats once more, and the animals trudge into view. Their wispy coats fluttered in the wind. They limped up a hill and slumped to the ground around him. They were starving. “Look at them. They have nothing to eat,” Shatar says. Throwing handfuls of dry corn, he adds, “If it keeps up this way, I’ll have to sell half the animals.” This stretch of China’s mythic grasslands, one of the world’s largest prairies, is running out of grass. The land is so barren that Shatar and other herders buy cut grass and corn by the truckload to keep their animals alive. Goats are so weak that some herders carry the stragglers home by motorcycle. Shatar expects most of his goats will live 10 years, half the life span of their parents. The animals’ birthrate is sinking too. Shatar once had 100 new goats each spring. This year he got 40. Even the precious cashmere has begun to suffer. Hungry goats are sprouting shorter, coarser, less valuable fleece. Shatar crouched to grab a clump of gravelly dust from his family land. When he was young, it was carpeted in green. “Our life depends on nature,” he says softly. “Things are getting worse year by year.” He stood and cast aside the handful of thin, russet-colored earth. It vanished into the breeze. The “diamond fibre,” as cashmere is known in China, has shed some sparkle in the West. There are cashmere bikinis and hoodies, jogging suits and baby clothes. Target is pushing a tousled “Casual Cashmere Look.” Of all cashmere products, though, nothing changed faster than the simple sweater. China sold its cashmere sweaters to America for just $34 on average last year, a full 75 percent off the import price of the Scottish version. The sudden shift from elite to everywhere has convulsed an industry that once prided itself on its posh cachet. INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 59

“This growth has been truly incredible,” said Andy Bartmess, chief operating officer of Scottish cashmere producer Dawson International. In a September speech to Chinese producers, Bartmess pleaded with them to halt the tumbling price. “Cashmere has a hundred-plus-year history as a luxury product,” he said. “The last few years have begun to destroy that reputation.” The Capra hircus, a.k.a. the goat, keeps its most valuable asset hidden. Its cashmere is combed each spring from beneath the coarse “guard hair” of the goat’s outer coat. It takes two or three animals to produce a sweater, twice that for a sport coat. Many have tried to breed cashmere goats outside the bleak, harsh plateaus and mountains of Asia, but few have succeeded. That has left global supplies of the stuff at roughly 15,000 tons a year – 70 percent of it from China.

ntil recently, not much had changed in the business since the 16th Century, when Kashmiri craftsmen spun shawls out of material delivered to India by Silk Road caravans from China, Afghanistan and northern Persia. Very little ever came from Kashmir itself, but the name stuck. By the early 19th Century, French Empress Eugenie created an icon by wearing shawls delicate enough to be drawn through a ring. In the 1870s, Scottish mill owner Joseph Dawson mechanized the processing of cashmere, and a blue-blood tradition was born. From the grasslands to the shelf, it was a stable, stodgy business. Deng Xiaoping changed all that. In 1979 the Chinese leader launched his historic drive toward a market economy, and China’s garment industry exploded. In a pattern that later would ripple through products from electronics to furniture, China swiftly claimed the bulk of the world’s $350 billion textile trade. It now exports an estimated 20 billion finished garments a year – more than three pieces of clothing for every person on Earth. Wang Linxiang is the Henry Ford of cashmere. In 1981 he was a 30-year-old Communist Party official overseeing a lethargic state-run plant in Inner Mongolia when he set out to make as many sweaters as the West would buy. With a new name, Erdos Cashmere Co., and a new motto, “Warm the Whole World,” Wang opened the age of mass cashmere production in China, ending the fabric’s exclusivity. Since then, hundreds of competing companies have sprouted across China. Special industrial parks devoted to the business of cashmere have opened on the plains of northern China. “If you cooperate with us, you’re 100 percent guaranteed to make money,” declares Zhang Zhijun, manager of the Zuoqi Jiali Co., striding through his 1-year-old factory. Zhang is in a good mood; one of his partners, Edenweiss International, has just received an order for 300,000 cashmere coats from America’s Wal-Mart. As with everything from groceries to socks, such high-volume retailers have changed the way customers think about cashmere prices. “When we negotiate and are able to reduce prices by additional purchases or large quantity, we are going to pass that along to (customers) in every case,” says Jack Weisbly, a US retail chain executive who oversees cashmere products. “I think once the consumer was able to buy a cashmere sweater for $100, rather than $300, consumers came to appreciate and expect it.”

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But that fierce price competition leaves cashmere industry veterans concerned. The big-box revolution is putting pressure on both their business and the land that sustains it. So many cashmere plants and other industries have opened in Alashan that authorities must ration water, forcing each factory to close for days at a time. Herders are forgetting the names of grasses that have vanished as their goats have helped denude the land. “Desertification is a big problem, and we know that all types of goats are rather voracious and tend to damage the fragile pasture,” said Swiss cashmere executive Francis Patthey in a speech to Chinese suppliers. The problem is being ignored, Patthey said. And it’s easy to see why. With U.S. demand at an all-time high, companies continue to build new factories and buy more expensive equipment – putting themselves deeper in debt. That glut of production, in turn, pushes prices ever lower. At Lingwu Zhongyin Cashmere, a high-end producer where workers were busy stitching Saks Fifth Avenue labels onto pale blue sweaters, executive Ma Feng worries that the system is overheating. “People forget this: Cashmere is not like cotton. It’s a very limited natural resource.” The limits of that resource have become impossible to ignore. Just down the street from Alashan’s cashmere factories, bright yellow sand dunes rise from the horizon like an implausible movie set. Without grass and shrubs to hold the dunes in place any longer, the deserts in Alashan are expanding by nearly 400 square miles a year. The land, it seems, is reclaiming itself from the people. On Sunday, April 9, Beijing residents woke to an unnerving sight: the sky was orange. A blizzard of dust hung in the wind and blanketed cars, trees and rooftops. It mixed with industrial pollution and formed a soupy cloud. Environmental officials warned children and the elderly not to open windows or go outside while the city weathered the worst air pollution of the year. Such storms are increasingly common. In the 1950s, China suffered an average of five dust and sand storms each year; in the 1970s, the average rose to 14, and in the 1990s storms struck 23 times each year, according to a 2005 study by the Asian Development Bank. That study found that for the past decade, Alashan has been the source of most sandstorms originating in China. A storm in 2002 forced 1.8 million South Koreans to seek medical help and cost the country $7.8 billion in damage to industries such as airlines and semiconductors, said the staterun Korea Environment Institute. Scientists thought that was as far as China’s pollution could reach. But a wave of new research is detailing how China’s dust and dirty air hurtle across the Pacific, fouling the sky, thickening the haze and altering the climate in the U.S. “We had one storm in East Asia which we called the perfect dust storm,” says Barry Huebert, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii. “There are good images of it following over the Pacific as a yellow plume. When it got to Colorado, it reduced visibility enough to make the national news. It continued east, and the last measurement was in the Canary Islands” off the west coast of Africa.

What scientists call trans-Pacific transport is an airborne highway of dust and pollutants. Indeed, just as China’s air comes to the U.S., North American pollution traverses the Atlantic. But China’s air poses particular hazards because it is some of the world’s filthiest. Roughly 300,000 people die each year in China of diseases linked to air pollution, according to a Chinese research institute. The main culprit is coal. About 70 percent of China’s soaring energy needs are met by coal-fired power plants. Many private homes also burn coal, combining to give China some of the world’s highest emissions of sulfur dioxide, soot and other pollutants. The goats play an important role as well. Dust from the animal-ravaged grasslands of Alashan is snatched by wind and sent east, where smokestacks frost it in a layer of pollution. Together the noxious brew reaches the U.S. within five days, where it can combine with local pollution to exceed the limits of healthy air, says Rudolf Husar, an atmospheric chemist at Washington University in St. Louis.

f most concern are ultratiny particles that lodge deep in the lungs, contributing to respiratory damage, heart disease and cancer. One storm that began in China and Mongolia in spring 1998 caused a spike in air pollution that prompted health officials in Washington, Idaho, Oregon and British Columbia to issue warnings to the public. That storm was strong enough to drape a brown cloud over the West Coast. Most of the time, China’s dirty dust is invisible to everyone except the growing ranks of researchers troubled by it. From 700 metres in the hills above San Francisco, Steven Cliff peers down on a spectacular range of forests, skyscrapers, clouds and sea. But Cliff and other researchers are more concerned about what lies years over the horizon. Cliff unlatches a plastic box filled with eight highly sensitive air monitors. From atop Mt. Tamalpais and other sites on the West Coast, researchers are discovering that polluted air from Asia hits the U.S. far more regularly than was believed even two years ago. “As pollution levels in Asia continue to rise, I believe that we will observe more Asian pollution in the U.S. in the future,” says Cliff, an atmospheric scientist at the University of California, Davis. Asian dust already accounted for 40 percent of the worst dust days in the Western U.S. in 2001, according to a study by researchers at NASA and Harvard. Despite efforts to reduce emissions, a top Chinese environmental official warned last year that air pollution could quadruple within 15 years because of the rapid rise in private cars and energy use in China. More Chinese pollution will make it harder and more expensive for cities like Los Angeles to meet strict federal air standards. Chinese environmental authorities recognize the damage contributed by overgrazing and are struggling to stem it. They have stitched massive checkered straw mats into the surface of the desert, dropped seeds from planes and planted millions of trees nationwide. Nothing has solved the problem. Officials on the front line of the advancing deserts are scrambling to undo the damage that got them here. In Inner Mongolia they have banned grazing on 163,000 square miles – more than a third of the province – since 2000, with broader

bans to come. Other herders have been required to lock up their animals and feed them by hand. The American cashmere industry says it cannot solve the crisis in the grasslands. The problem is “probably bigger than the industry,” says Karl Spilhaus, president of the Boston-based Cashmere and Camel Hair Manufacturers Institute. “It’s a government problem and a world problem.” On the other side of the world, Shatar the herdsman saw no choice but to leave his land. After a long, bitter summer, the same cashmere goats that had brought him prosperity now cost him a fortune to keep alive. He was trucking grass and corn from 120 miles away, consuming the very windfall that cashmere could deliver. So Shatar and his family packed up their motorcycle and shuttered the house that cashmere built. They moved the herd 50 miles south in search of grass. He was leaving the plot where his father was born. But he would do anything to avoid resettling in a town, the fate of hundreds of other herders who are succumbing to their industry’s overuse of the land. Many of those former nomads can be found in Alashan’s towns, listlessly growing wheat and raising dairy cows – the nomad’s equivalent of a desk job. “Herdsmen can’t take farming life because we’ve been doing this for generations,” Shatar says. And yet, just two months later, he returns, determined not to end up like the other herders in town. Cashmere is too good to give up, he says. INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 61

thinkLIFE money

A ticket to ride

Peter Hensley likens KiwiSaver to a tour bus excursion

im and Moira were having dinner at their local club with their good friends Jan & Ken. Over the years they had come to realise that Jan was hopeless with money and she openly admitted it. She was lucky that Ken was financially prudent otherwise their retirement years would have been bleak indeed. Jim brought up the subject of KiwiSaver because their financial adviser had just published his fifth book, which concentrated on that very topic. Jim had been able to sneak a look at one of the proofing copies and accordingly thought himself reasonably informed on the issue. Jan said that if the Government were going to introduce a savings program, then it had better be simple and easy to understand. Jim assured her that it was. He went on to explain that his adviser had introduced the analogy of sending your savings on a road trip with a bus company. You were able to select both the bus company and which bus your money was going to ride on. This tweaked Ken’s interest and he asked Jim to carry on. Moira groaned when she heard this comment as the last thing that Jim needed was any encourage-

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ment to be the centre of attention. Jim’s desire to share his new knowledge overrode Moira’s expectation of hearing about Jan and Ken’s latest trip to tropical north Queensland. So, with Ken’s blessing, Jim launched into his understanding of the Government’s new savings initiative. He explained that each individual would have their own account. Now membership was not compulsory, but if you commenced a new job after 1st July 07, then you were automatically signed up. There is a three month window where you could opt out and cancel your membership, but once this window had closed, then you remained in the scheme. The idea is that contributions/savings are deducted by the employer (at a set rate of either 4 or 8%) and sent off to the IRD. The funds would then be sent to a fund manager who would invest them until the individual reached the Government nominated retirement age. At this point Jan indicated that she was getting lost. What happened to the road trip idea that Jim was talking about before? Jim explained that his adviser had used the concept of sending the savings on a road trip. He likened a fund manager to a tour

bus company who had a range of buses which each went to different destinations. There are six default providers. Should a taxpayer not select a scheme provider and if their employer does not have a preferred provider then they will be automatically allocated to one of the six default schemes. The six default providers are (1) �� ASB, (2) AMP, (3) AXA, (4) ING, (5) Mercers and (6) Tower These are all dependable and reliable Tour Bus Companies. They have been in the investment business a long time and have passed a series of stringent tests (warrants of fitness and mechanical overhauls) in order to be selected as a default provider. In order to be a default provider each operator has to have an extraordinarily economical bus which has a wide range of safety features. It is not designed to venture far from base and has a very limited list of sites it can visit. It is unlikely to be involved in an accident, but like all buses it will experience a flat tire and be off the road for maintenance from time to time. The drivers of these buses are seasoned veterans who have world wide tour experience. They understand that their passengers are keen to get to their drop off

destination safely, on time with minimal disruption. Passengers must also understand that through no fault of the driver, the bus could be delayed by traffic jams, accidents or unseasonal weather. In times like this, the driverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s skill, talent and ability will minimize the delay, but the timetable will be disrupted. Ken asked Jim if it was possible to take money out of KiwiSaver before retirement. In reality the answer is no, the scheme is designed to leave the money locked in until retirement. Should an individual die before attaining that age, then the money is released to their estate. So apart from death, disablement, becoming destitute or departing the country the funds have to remain invested. Now Jan was quite interested in this concept as the main excuse she used for not being able to save money, was that she was always allowed access to her funds and if this system did not let her get at the money maybe it would work for people like her. Moira chipped in and she asked Jim if the KiwiSaver scheme had any guarantees. Jimâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s importance grew a little more by being able to answer with a firm no. His adviserâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s guide actually quoted the section of the Act which said that the scheme was not guaranteed in any way. Jan asked Jim what incentives were in place to get people to sign up. With the initial scheme, there appeared to be only one, a $1,000 tax free contribution from the Government for all new accounts. No tax deductions, no other incentives at all. Now Jim was able to share with his dining companions that this was the one area that was likely to change. Not only does every other western country in the world have some sort of national superannuation savings scheme, every one of them has tax benefits for its members. Jim predicted that some changes were likely to be in store in this area. Moira said that it was OK to send savings off to fund managers, but where are they going to invest the money? Jim suggested that she read the two chapters in the book which outline both the risks associated with investment and also the idea of Modern Portfolio Theory which explains the basis of the different strategies used by fund managers. Jim said that the chapter on fees and costs was most interesting. He had to agree with his adviser who says that KiwiSaver is brilliantly simple. Scheme members have the choice of which Fund Manager (Tour Bus Company) invests their money and also where it is invested (which Bus it rides on). Apart from Death, Departure, Disablement or becoming Destitute the funds remain locked in until retirement. They can switch Buses and/or Tour Companies for free at any time. The Government has made it very clear that there are no guarantees, which make it all the more important to choose the best Bus for your circumstances. If your Bus gets a flat tyre or worse still crashes, then your funds will be directly affected. There is an expectation within the investment advisory industry that after the initial settling in period that KiwiSaver will become compulsory for all taxpayers below a certain age. Jim thought the book was so good; he was going to get a copy for each of his children and grandchildren.

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thinkLIFE education

Give me a child

Old Marxists never die – they only change their spots, argues Amy Brooke

hen the usual disparaging comments used to be made about Reds under the beds, the well-respected Tony Neary, Secretary of the North Island Electrical Trades Union – with first-hand experience of how much New Zealand had already been infiltrated and taken over by the far Left – gave a crisp answer. It was that the Reds weren’t under the beds – they were sitting up in bed and having their breakfast trays brought in. I was reminded how little the Left’s aims change when I recently heard Brian Edwards on Radio New Zealand regurgitating the current nonsense emanating from the education bureaucracy and circulating with the new draft national curriculum. It pontificates that teachers need to tailor their teaching to the type of community they are from. It centres on the “new” notion that the curriculum should be “less prescriptive”. Edwards was referring particularly to Maori and Pacific Island school areas. I can’t think of a less fair attitude to take than that these children should be fobbed off – largely confined to learning within the strictures of basically primitive cultures with the transmission of the philosophy of violence, male aggression, and inappropriate self-aggrandizement in which too many are still raised. To demonize as “colonial”, as Edwards did, that far more important alternative available to them, a challenging education leading them through the great gateways to the West, short-changes these youngsters, limiting their options. It’s condescending, essentially regarding them as intellectually less capable, not up to the task of acquiring a first-class education. It avoids what is a harsh reality to radical activists – that it was from Western civilization, through genuine literacy, through colonialism and Christianity, that there came to this small country the knowledge of the intellectual treasure trove of many

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other far more advanced cultures, offering access to broader and deeper knowledge – particularly the important moral values embodied in the call to individual conscience. Is this why “colonialism” is ritually inveighed against? At any rate, it was tedious to listen to Geoffrey Palmer, late last year, still conjuring up the bogeyman – “shackles of colonialism”. Marxism is the great leveller – except for its nomenklatura, avaricious for power, for self-advancement and to do that very levelling. The call for the curriculum to be less “prescriptive” plays nicely into the hands of incompetent teachers. No wonder the teacher unions welcome it. It is not new – only the packaging is – it has been with us for over half a century now. That prescriptiveness is essential, to protect students in second-rate schools – that its lack advantages those in far better schools, where good teachers will teach well, anyway – is a point that needs taking up in a future column when we can examine what was the major dividing point in the philosophy of New Zealand education. Lazy and incompetent – even hugely ignorant teachers – have been well served (and will be even more so, to the detriment of their short-changed pupils) without detailed and clear prescriptive guidelines about what is to be taught. It was in the 1950s that the emphasis on ensuring these were (in fairness) available to all children – giving them an equal chance, irrespective of background – was removed in favour of the nebulous “childcentred” education. Over half a century on, the damage is obvious. The spurious argument that lessening prescriptiveness contributes to a quality education, calls for only what is “relevant” to a community. This is another of the hydra-headed mantra of the left. In the 80s, neo-Marxist educationists such as Liz Gordon, seeing education primarily in terms of class struggle, argued success-

fully against teaching all New Zealand children to speak well, irrespective of backgrounds of disadvantage. The reality – that this invertedly snobbish doctrine has meant lessening their chances to take their place in a much wider world, offering more opportunities to many than the one they were born into -brings on attacks of intellectual deafness. It’s hard to convey how rubbishy our state education system is without using what are called “anecdotal” examples by those who hate to face the facts of people’s actual experience. Putting aside our supposed international ratings (for the present) let’s hear from a parent who recently attended a parent-teacher day at his child’s primary school. The female teacher waved a paper around and said approvingly that the new curriculum put the emphasis on understanding, not knowledge. Apart from his shocked reaction, no parent there showed any sign of questioning this. Her statement gives the game away. The new schools’ curriculum is, unsurprisingly, full of the same tacky ideology, woolly concepts, and waffly jargon as the one imposed on desperately bored students ten years ago. It strengthens the long attack on important knowledge. Throughout these recent decades, the state education bureaucracy has insisted that knowledge is not important – that “skills” are the thing. Mentally-cloned individuals have written and repeated this nonsense ad nauseum. Teachers mindlessly repeat what they are told on in-service training courses and by programmed heads of departments. This concept of knowledge out – skills in – has admirably suited the purpose of those ensuring that New Zealand’s young will leave school having without being genuinely well-taught, well-educated, knowledgeable individuals. Skills has been the in-word – the skills to access the electronic world to find out anything of the moment that you need to check.

However, genuine skills depend on knowledge. Without the knowledge of what has preceded us, we lose the ability to learn to analyze and evaluate, to think more deeply. Without a prime emphasis on knowledge, we lose what our forebears most thought worth preserving to help us to become learned, wise individuals, able to share in the best of Western thinking, that great inheritance of the mind which belongs to Maori children, as well. Most Maori now also have European forebears, but this rich Western inheritance is never emphasized as theirs, also. Our children, both Maori and European-descended, have become intellectually and spiritually impoverished. This well suits the wellentrenched neo-Marxists long bedded in.

The under-taught parents at this meeting failed to critically evaluate the teacher’s silly assertion. “Understanding” what? What this agenda-ridden education establishment wants them to take on board, its own thinking in regard to the issues of the day? Programmed mentally to fall into line – as are already so many to date, without any awareness of what they have been subjected to? Remember when it was “understanding” the superiority of Maori cultural values, of the whanau practice of farming out children to relatives, endorsed by then Governor-General Paul Reeves – rather than the so-called nuclear family of husband and wife care and responsibility? The crime and prison statistics have disproved this. No doubt

the utterly one-sided presentation of the supposedly global warming phenomena; environmental extremism: feminism, gay and abortion “rights”; ethnic issues: the encouragement of religions whose arbitrary and cruel practices discriminate again their own people: the not-so subtle denigration of the Christian roots of our culture? All are part of that “understanding”, replacing knowledge, in which teachers are expected to programme our young. And, at their heart, is that neverceasing war against the West. Old Marxists never die – they only change their spots. www.amybrooke.co.nz http://www.livejournal.com/users/brookeonline/ www.summersounds..co.nz

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 65

thinkLIFE science

The end of the mermaids?

A symbiotic relationship between manatees and Florida powerplants is coming to an end, writes Ludmilla Lelis

LORIDA – Sea cows call the warm waters near energy facilities home. Scientists fear that if a plant closes, those animals might not head to springs or migrate to South Florida. For manatees, the warm water that spills from power plants is addictive. The plants have long provided the sea cows with an artificial refuge beyond their natural winter habitat near springs and in warmer southern waters. Scientists estimate that six in every 10 manatees now winter near power plants that line Florida’s waterways. It is a dependency that someday could have grave consequences for the manatee. State and federal officials expect many of these aging power plants to close eventually. As the state’s human population grows, more efficient power production requires newer facilities. A 95-year-old plant in Fort Pierce that once attracted as many as 49 manatees will close next year. Two plants in Brevard are each more than 40 years old, and their age has manatee advocates worried. Officials say they are unprepared for the potential death toll when plants shut down and leave manatees in the cold. “With the potential for catastrophic losses, this is the single greatest threat on the horizon for manatees,” says Pat Rose, a biologist and executive director of the Save the Manatee Club. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says potential powerplant closures are a key reason manatees still face a high risk of extinction, even though population gains have shifted man-

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atees from “endangered” to the less ominous state classification of “threatened.” State wildlife officials and a federal task force of government biologists, environmentalists and power-company officials are looking at alternative ways to keep manatees warm while weaning them from power plants, but there are no easy or cheap fixes. “It’s taken 60 years to develop the dependence we have now, and it’ll take a long time to change things back,” says David Laist, a senior policy analyst with the federal Marine Mammal Commission. “We should not be looking for quick solutions, though we need to look for solutions quickly.” Power plants weren’t built to attract manatees, but the lumbering mammals soon became accidental tourists. Manatees have always ranged into North Florida but knew to retreat when the weather began to cool. Then along came these power plants, built along rivers and bays from 1945 to 1970. The plants use water to cool the generating systems, then discharge the water as much as 7 degrees warmer. The temperature difference can save manatees when waters drop below 16 degrees, the coldest temperature the animals can tolerate. Generations of manatees grew accustomed to the power plants. Mothers stay near the warm-water outfalls with calves, who in turn train their offspring to do the same. But manatees fare better at natural springs rather than artificial sites, Laist says. Blue Spring in Orange City and Kings Bay in Citrus County, where water bubbles from the ground at a constant 22

degrees, support two of the state’s healthiest manatee groups. Over the years, however, some of the state’s springs have been pumped dry, while fences, locks or silt block access to others, Laist co-wrote in a study about winter manatee refuges. “Power plants had offset the loss of the natural habitat that had been historically available to manatees,” Rose says. Power plants, however, do not last forever. Age makes them more troublesome and less efficient than newer plants. The availability and price of oil and coal used in older plants also could affect their future. New power plants may not discharge the warm water, as a result of environmental regulations. What worries scientists is that if one of the key power plants for manatees closes, those animals might not head to springs or migrate to South Florida. In the late 1990s, a box-manufacturing plant near Jacksonville stopped discharging warm water, but at least eight manatees lingered. By the end of winter, six died and two had to be rescued. “The animals knew this site and knew it always ran,” says state wildlife-commission biologist Ron Mezich. “The longer they waited, the more in jeopardy they became.” The result could be much worse in Brevard County, with two power plants on the Indian River just south of Titusville. One, the Florida Power & Light plant, had the highest single manatee count of all the state’s power plants this year – 505. Several biologists agreed that many of those Brevard manatees have never known another winter haven, and that scores would perish if a plant suddenly shut down. “There is every reason to believe if there is not a viable alternative, you could have hundreds and hundreds of manatees dying,” Rose says. Because of that risk, the utilities are required by the federal government to operate manatee-dependent plants on the coldest days, even if it costs the power company. “We have had to do that, and it’s not cheap,” says William B. Baker Jr., principal biologist for Houston-based Reliant Energy, which would otherwise run its Brevard plant only when the demand for electricity peaks. “We would like to not have to do that, because fuel is expensive. “But it’s the cost of doing business, and these manatees have become very loyal to these sites.”

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INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 67

thinkLIFE technology

Big boys’ toy

Meccano is making a comeback, pinning its hopes on robotics, writes Jean-Baptiste Piggin

veteran among boys’ construction toys, Meccano, which was patented 106 years ago in England, is going robotic, thanks to a new parts pack that includes an artificial eye and an internet interface. Millions of boys, starting with the generation of Britons that was to be decimated in the trenches of World War One, have bolted together Meccano’s perforated steel strips into cars and cranes, and disassembled them repeatedly to make them into new machines. The toy was invented by a Liverpool clerk, Frank Hornby, to teach children engineering principles. It spread around the globe. Hornby took out a patent on the idea in 1901, although the Meccano company insists it was actually founded three years earlier in 1898. Antique Meccano parts are traded today on online auction sites and the toy’s rich history is studied by “Meccanomen.” Despite the sexism of the advertising,

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there have always been many women enthusiasts too. Until the 1960s, Meccano was a giant among toys, with its own magazine (now “reprinted” on CD-ROM) and enthusiasts’ guilds. Sets of the tiny girders, axles, cogs and motors were handed down from father to son, boys grasped how to tighten the tiny nuts and bolts and reverentially learned obscure mechanical terms such as “trunnions,” “bosses” and “flanges” for the parts. Then new-fangled toys came along offering colour and instant gratification. Spoiled children sneered at construction jobs that often took a couple of hours or were too lazy to disassemble parts and sort them for reuse. The Meccano business shrank. The original English company collapsed. Since 1981, the Meccano offshoot in France has owned the world rights and led the mission to save Meccano from oblivion.

“

Sets of the tiny girders, axles, cogs and motors were handed down from father to son, boys grasped how to tighten the tiny nuts and bolts and reverentially learned obscure mechanical terms such as “trunnions,” “bosses” and “flanges” for the parts

”

The new 210-component pack, codenamed Spyke, might just do it. Last month, Meccano unveiled Spyke at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. This month at the Nuremberg Toy Fair in Germany it demonstrated to trade buyers how the product can be controlled using a WiFi-enabled personal or laptop computer. At first glance, Spyke looks similar to the rash of robotic pets and sci-fi figures currently on the market, but as marketing manager Francois Demares explained, there is a difference: the robot has bolt holes and surfaces so that it can be enhanced with Meccano parts. That brings it squarely into position to challenge the king of digital construction toys, the Lego Mindstorm series. The figure trundles along on its own rubber tracks and is equipped with a basic webcam, enabling its use as a surveillance device. Meccano says it can activate an alarm, send pictures by e-mail and even be used as a voice-over-internet-protocol telephone.

Borrowing a popular feature from Roomba’s robot vacuum cleaner, Spyke can also find its own way back to its recharging station when its batteries get low. It can be combined with the metal and plastic shapes in other modern Meccano sets. Demares says Spyke will initially retail for about US$250. The only people likely to be hostile to Spyke (the name is meant to suggest spying) are the Meccano purists who are still upset that today’s Meccano bolts are tightened with allen keys, not screwdrivers. The antiquarians still build 1920s-style cranes and trucks with awkward boxy cabs, toys so long out of time that they exert a kind of lifestyle charm on a 21stcentury observer. Meccano, based in suburban Paris and now owned by Nikko of Japan, has not forgotten the old faithful, and continues to also manufacture red-and-green vintage sets to build cranes, “telphers,” “monoplanes” and other machines unfamiliar to most people alive today.

“

At first glance, Spyke looks similar to the rash of robotic pets and sci-fi figures currently on the market, but as marketing manager Francois Demares explained, there is a difference: the robot has bolt holes and surfaces so that it can be enhanced with Meccano parts

”

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 69

feelLIFE

sport

A New Zealand Knight’s French crusade

He’s the fourth man in a formidable selection front row. A modest type of bloke who this year became rugby’s first figurehead elevated to New Zealand’s highest honour – the Order of Merit. Sir Brian Lochore is also a calming influence in the All Blacks’ quest to live up to their overwhelming favouritism to lift the World Cup. It’s a symmetrical 20 years since he coached a brilliant New Zealand team to an Eden Park triumph over France in the inaugural event. Investigate’s Chris Forster finds out how this pressurised French assignment slots into the remarkable life of Brian.

t was an apologetic Brian Lochore when I touched base with him at his Wairarapa farm early on a Saturday afternoon. I’d arranged a chat with the New Zealand selector on his commute over the Rimutakas to cast an eye over the Hurricanes’ All Blacks prospects in a Super 14 match at the Cake-tin. It turns out he’d left his cell phone at home. “Are you the bloke I was supposed to talk to last night?”. It’s almost daunting to have one of the 20 great living New Zealanders

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explaining a communication breakdown and a measure of what a good man he is. Turns out he was delighted to have a prelunch chat about everything from stifling Super 14 defences to how to avoid the semi-final collapses at the last two World Cup campaigns. The media scrutiny over Graham Henry’s brain child – the so-called rest and re-conditioning programme – has well and truly fizzled out. South African and Australian coaches are now wonder-

ing why they didn’t try to skip the ridiculously early start to the Super 14 season and put their players through the torture of 9 months of rugby. They must be livid with envy at how Henry got away with it. For a new-fangled concept Sir Brian is a great believer. “We’ve had three camps and already you can see the players are physically in great shape and relaxed. They’re doing what they’re supposed to do – re-setting the rugby-life balance”.

“

You can imagine the 67 year hoping that this time next year he can stand tall on a distant paddock reflecting on a successful crusade to fields of combat in Marseille, Cardiff and the Stade de France

”

They’re knitting together nicely too – “a step forward from the end of year tour last year which helped this group grow”. While the likes of Dan Carter, Jerry Collins and Richie McCaw get their fat to muscle ratios to optimum levels the Super 14’s trundling along in less than impressive style. The score-line at the Hurricanes game the night before was 11-10. It took until the last move of the game for the crowd to get a thrill. There was a 6-3 yawnfest in Brisbane, the lowest score of the 11 year history of Super rugby. Hardly makes the drive from the Wairarapa worthwhile. “Defences are so hard to break down these days. And the Hurricanes are without 5 of their pack”, concedes Sir Brian. But he laughs at memories of some of the muddy struggles from his heyday as a 25 test All Black. “3-nil was a good score back then as long as we were on the right side of it”. It’s clear the 66 year old is there to put some old fashioned values into the thoroughly modern All Blacks. But he is worried about the technical nature of the game – the endless rule changes imposed by the IRB – supposedly in the name of entertainment. The new four step approach to scrums isn’t all that popular in the Lochore household for instance – “too mechanical … too much to think about … not what rugby is about”. “Watching the game last night I wondered how long the ball was actually in play” – referring to the endless stoppages and how long it takes to set up the technical phases of scrums, lineouts, penalties and dropouts. “This issue will have to be looked at”. He’s probably echoing the frustrations of just about every frustrated rugby fan in the country. That’s the key to Sir Brian Lochore – he’s an ordinary Kiwi who’s done good. An

achiever who thinks nothing of it – who sees a lot of parallels between this momentous year for the All Blacks and his biggest success as a coach, two decades ago. “We’re in a concentrated period like 1987. We played an attacking brand of rugby. But our tournament was only organised over a luncheon six months before the event. This time we’ve got three years”. Which brings us to the main event. When they get to France and their Mediterranean base in Marseilles, Sir Brian’s greatest concern is they don’t start getting ahead of themselves. The most infamous example was John Hart’s illfated Cup campaign in England, when they were flambéed by the French in the semi-final and arrived home as pariahs rather than heroes. “Once you get to the quarterfinals it needs to be one game at a time, you don’t want to complicate things”, cautions Lochore, who’s part of the masterplan for his sensibility as well as his undeniable mana. He’s also committed to progress. “We’ve got to be better than last year. If we don’t progress the other buggers will catch up to us”. Sir Brian saves his biggest warning to near the end of our Saturday afternoon interview. He’s worried about decision making … that most critical of factors during key moments of major rugby matches. “It’s absolutely vital that the more inclusive we can be – the better the team will perform. All the players have to have an input. If they feel they’re contributing the more dedicated (to the cause) they will be”. That team philosophy and inclusiveness could be the key between the All Blacks going all the way, or misfiring when they shouldn’t do in a semi-final. If the players make the right decisions in highly pressurised flashpoints of the game – Henry, his co-coaches Wayne Smith and Steve Hansen and the vast majority

of New Zealanders could look back at the masterstroke of having a fourth selector in France – Sir Brian Lochore. QQQ Decades of service to the national game and a host of organisations including the Q E II Trust can take its toll. The born-and-bred Masterton icon loves nothing better than getting out on the farm to escape from the endless rugby talk he faces at everything from weddings to post match functions. It’s his form of relaxation. “There’s nothing easy about working on the land but it gives me time to think about other things and I think that’s important. People always want to talk rugby with you and you’ve got to talk rugby back to them, so it’s good to get your own space to do your own thing and recharge those batteries”. You can imagine the 67 year hoping that this time next year he can stand tall on a distant paddock reflecting on a successful crusade to fields of combat in Marseille, Cardiff and the Stade de France. Maybe it’ll be one of his most treasured memories to reflect on during a most distinguished life. THE ALL BLACKS ROAD TO FRANCE Important dates for New Zealand’s rugby elite There are two pivotal tests against World Cup rivals France – as well as a chance to play the reserves against Canada. Then it’s straight into a remodelled Tri Nations against familiar foe before packing their bags for Europe. NZ v France: Eden Park, Saturday 2nd June NZ v France: Westpac Trust Stadium, Saturday 9th June NZ v Canada: Waikato Stadium, Saturday 16th June NZ v South Africa: Durban, Sunday 24th June NZ v Australia: MCG, Saturday 30th June NZ v South Africa: Jade Stadium, Saturday 14th July NZ v Australia: Eden Park, Saturday 21st July

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 71

feelLIFE

health

Ending it all

Claire Morrow finds a relative’s way of seeking death disturbing

am past my deadline to write this piece, perhaps by coincidence it concerns something not entirely unrelated to deadlines. By the time you read this a distant family member will be gone. I have never met her – I can’t honestly say that I am entitled to feel a personal loss over her situation, although I do. The whole thing is sad – you can turn to religion, I suppose, but I am not altogether sure what the moral situation is. She is starving to death (and dehydrating to death, more importantly) by choice. She is in the terminal stages of a degenerative disease and

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has apparently made this choice over a long time. One is not sure what to make of it all. Does one have a right to life? In fact, it should be argued from a philosophical position that no-one has an unmitigated right to life...we all die, after all. A “right to life” is better expressed as a right not to have anyone end your life. Thus, it is a painful reality that unborn human babies are frequently miscarried but that is no more an argument for abortion than that some newborns die is an argument for infanticide. But what about a right to

die? Does that sentence even make sense? You can argue from a religious perspective that one does not have the right to end their own life – this is no mere conceit of Christianity; most of the world’s religions take suicide very seriously – because it is down to God to make that choice. From a non religious point of view, it is tricky. Assume there is no higher power; may I decide I don’t want to live and end my life? You would probably say that I have responsibilities (and I do), I would cause harm by the act, I have better choices. You might say – to the acute suicidal – that there are always better choices, even if they are not yet evident. And in the case of suicide it is either a crazy act or a selfish one. It is helplessness, hopelessness or a blind reckless hour of stupid raging sorrow that took hold and didn’t remit because it was too late. I tend to see suicide as an acute failure of hope. It is always better to wait it out. But the woman is dying...slowly. Losing one function at a time. She cannot hold anything, can’t sit, walking was lost years ago, speech is going. She can’t breathe properly. She’s been dying for 30 years, has about 6 months to go if nothing intervenes. It sounds like a sentence, doesn’t it? Six months left to serve. And that is sad, it is sad that we see it that way. Sadder still that we might be right. She has suffered terribly, up to now, and faces an escalation of suffering yet. What more is there for her to do? Doubtless we think of Terry Schiavo, but that was a complex case. There were family members, money....she was unconscious and had been so for years. The court case hinged on what she would have wanted, there was perhaps not enough thought as to whether everything that could be done, had been. Certainly there had been minimal attempt to rehabilitate her. I didn’t like the case – sensed that there were dark things motivating it, that it was about anything but an unconscious woman. But there is a case to be made, of course; “Thou shall not kill, but needn’t strive officiously to keep alive”. If a person cannot get food and water without medical intervention....well there are many parts of the world that there is no confusion about the outcome. Certainly it is an artificial intervention to maintain life. I suspect if it were someone close to me I wouldn’t ever think it time to give up hope. But that is easy to say, of course, and what one per-

son sees as “maintaining hope” is to another “needless suffering”. I feel inclined to say that one has a right to refuse medical treatment and accept the consequences. Like the morphine overdose in the terminal patient, if the pain is great, morphine can be given until the pain is mediated. If this results in a dose of morphine that might be lethal, this is included morally within the doctrine of double-effect. One refuses the intervention and if death results, well, that is a step removed. I am not sure there is an easy way to resolve it. I suppose we must trust the individual. If they are not depressed, causing no harm, not directly ending their life...we must clench our fists and wait, I suppose. And do what we can (at any slow death, intended or otherwise). Since we have agreed that we will see death in our lives up until we experience it, I can – at least – provide some guidelines for the bedside: There has been some interesting research that suggests that the just do it approach is quicker and more comfortable than the neither one thing or another route of maintaining fluid intake, but knocking off nutrition. My experience is that if the body is already sick – unlike a political prisoner, for example – the body very quickly gets the message. Fluid/electrolyte imbalance causes renal failure, or occasionally heart attack. It’s not so much the lack of calories as the imbalance of electrolytes that does it. Sometimes infection sets in pretty quickly. It is unsettling to see someone become wasted and dehydrated, to say the least. In terms of being present, it’s probably worth knowing that the smell can be horrific. The sickly acetone keytone smell of starvation is not repulsive the way sewerage or vomit is repulsive, but somehow we sense at a primitive level that this is a no good thing, and react badly to it. Constant, rotating essential oils in an oil burner are a practical solution, and improve things considerably. Ginger and lavender are both good – be cautious with anything sweet – you start to hallucinate the keytone smell over it. Orange is usually bad, but lemon is fine. You have to rotate them, or you begin to associate the one smell with the illness. Dehydrated dry skin can be creepy if you’re not expecting it, and keeping skin clean and moisturised gives comfort, although it doesn’t affect the prognosis. Take any band-aids or jewelry off if they aren’t wanted, even rings and necklaces can become uncomfortable later. Nursing staff will move a terminal patient often to prevent bedsores, but if one does occur rest assured that they are not painful, in spite of appearances. If you have music going – find out about this before the final stage – please change the CD. More than one dying patient has complained that they’ve been coming in and out of consciousness to the same damn CD for days. And then it’s waiting. It is an awful thing to think about, but I can assure you that the majority who die from a terminal disease do it quietly and in peace. They ask little, and it is a gift to give whatever talking, touching and presence as might help. I, however – so far removed, of course – plan to linger.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 73

feelLIFE

alt.health

It’s not the cough that carries you off… America’s FDA is evaluating the effectiveness of cold medicine for children, reports Bruce Jaspen

n response to serious new questions about remedies parents have relied on for decades, the Food and Drug Administration has confirmed it will study the safety and effectiveness of over-the-counter cold medicines marketed for young children. The agency’s move came in reaction to a petition by leading pediatricians and public health officials who in early March urged the FDA to restrict companies from marketing certain cold and cough medicines to children age 6 and younger, citing reports of deaths, heart arrhythmias and other dangerous events. The agency says the review is called for, in part, because over-the-counter cough and cold medicines have only been studied in adults with those findings on safety and efficacy “extrapolated” to children. The government’s decision to study the efficacy of cough and cold medicines on children is certain to set off concerns among many parents. The FDA advised consumers in the interim to abide by the labels and consult with their own doctors about treatments. The FDA’s move is the latest, and perhaps most serious, expression of concern about over-the-counter cough and cold medicines. But skepticism has been building over the last decade, with some physicians wondering whether they should even be given to children at all. Some doctors question whether such medicines are all that effective in the first place. “I just don’t recommend cough medicines for kids because I do not think they work very well,” says Dr. Elizabeth Powell, an emergency medicine physician at Children’s Memorial Hospital who has published data on injury prevention. “I know a lot of families are trying to get some relief so their kids can sleep but I think, because they are potentially toxic, and we really don’t think they work. Do they want to risk harm?”

74, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007

Powell’s hospital routinely does not recommend over-the-counter cold or cough medicines because studies show they are not effective, Julie Pesch, a hospital spokeswoman says. Doctors, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, have been concerned about the risks of cold and cough medicines for at least the last decade. In 1997, for example, the Academy warned about the risks of overdose potential and other risks with certain cough suppressants. And last month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a study of hospital emergency departments that found more than 1,500 children under age 2 were treated for “adverse events, including overdoses, associated with cough and cold medications.” The report identified three deaths. The CDC study cited cough and cold medicines that contain nasal decongestants, antihistamines and cough suppressants, among other remedies. Such products are taken in the “millions” of dosages each week by children, but pediatricians also questioned the effectiveness of such medicines including those outlined in the CDC report. “This is one of those things where the evidence accumulates to the point where then finally the general community of physicians and scientists says this needs another look,” says Dr. Wayne Snodgrass, who chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics committee on drugs and signed the petition as part of his role as professor of pediatrics and pharmacology at University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. “It’s like a lot of things. It would have been nice to have done this earlier.” The FDA is expected to complete its review in the next several months, Dr. Charles Ganley, director of the agency’s office of nonprescription drug products, told reporters on a conference call early March.

“This is something that we have been looking at from the middle of last year,” Ganley says. “If there are issues that need to be addressed, we would address them.” The FDA said it would look at the safety and effectiveness of decongestants, antihistamines, cough suppressants and expectorants on children 6 and under. “We have always followed the lead of the FDA for carrying new products or removing existing ones,” says Michael Polzin, a spokesman for pharmacy giant Walgreen Co. “We do not anticipate any action in the near term. As the FDA reportedly said, it is too early to predict whether a review would lead to new regulations.” The Consumer Healthcare Products Association, which represents the overthe-counter drug industry, said cough and cold remedies have a long history of safety “when used according to the label,” the group’s president, Linda Suydam, says. “Current FDA assessment of the safety and efficacy of approved children’s overthe-counter antitussives, expectorants, nasal decongestants, antihistamines, and combination cough cold products is based on scientific studies in children and/or on extrapolation from extensive data in adults,” she adds. “This process of extrapolation follows internationally recognized recommendations for diseases which are similar in adult and pediatric patients and applies to the symptoms and conditions for these medicines.” Earlier this year, the American College of Chest Physicians said over-the-counter cough suppressants don’t work, casting doubt on the billions spent every year to fight the common cold’s most irritating symptom. Its statement applied only to medications that claim to treat coughs, not other cold symptoms, and it suggested cold sufferers ignore over-the-counter drugs with the active ingredients dextromethorphan and the expectorant guaifenesin.

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www.mistralsoftware.co.nz INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 75

tasteLIFE

TRAVEL

Blame it on the rain

Chris Welsch discovers Samba is the heartbeat of Brazil, and manages to avoid the Carnival

IO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – Rain fell in sheets that battered the pavement like the waves crashing on nearby Ipanema Beach. The beat was steady and slow – whush, whush, whush, whush. The taxi pulled up, slick and yellow, and my wife and I ran out of the door of our hotel, hunched against the deluge, to meet it. Inside the cab, our Brazilian friend greeted us with apologies for the rain.

76, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007

Our destination for the evening was the Rival Theatre, which occupies a cavernous basement hall with an entry on a narrow side street in the Lapa District, one of Rio’s oldest, grandest neighborhoods. Our friend, Cristina Walmsley, a carioca (native of Rio), was well-known to the doorman, who greeted her and my wife with kisses and me with a heartfelt handshake. We entered the hall, and a waitress

took us to a table not far from the stage. Shortly thereafter, Arlindo Cruz, a massive man with a tiny mandolin, sat down on a stool center stage. More than a dozen percussionists, guitarists and horn players lined up behind him and they began to play. They took up the beat of the rain and the ocean – steady, even, seductive. That was the base from which Cruz’s plaintive vocals rose and fell.

At the first note, the music lifted everyone in the bar onto their feet. Men elegantly shuffled the tidy two-step of the samba. Their female dance partners matched the beat with their feet, but doubled it with their hips. There was no self-conscious hesitation; the separation between band and crowd didn’t exist. Cruz sang, the crowd sang. The band members danced, we all danced. That is the spirit of samba. We went to Brazil on a long-postponed honeymoon, but the reason we’d chosen the destination was for its music. One borrowed CD a few years ago has led to an obsession with the popular sounds of Brazil. As human beings, we are often drawn to what is alien to us. My genes, and those of my wife, Silke Schroeder, came down from people who lived in the darker, colder parts of the world. Samba, with its distinctive, floating downbeat, is a product of warm, sunny places. At its core, driven by percussion, samba has African roots, but like Brazil itself, samba is a stew of other places. From Portugal, samba gets its guitars, and an undertow of heartbreak. From indigenous Brazil, samba is infused with the soul of the country itself. Samba’s most distinctive sound is the lilt of the cuica. If you’ve heard samba, you know that squeaky cry – it sounds like it’s coming from a jungle bird of particularly iridescent plumage. The moment I heard samba, I felt a twitch in my hips and a strong pull toward Brazil. We had a room at the Arpoador Inn, a hotel at the eastern end of Ipanema Beach. It was plain, clean, comfortable and right on the waterfront. We slipped into a leisurely carioca rhythm. We hit the beach during the day, the clubs at night, all the while accompanied by a steady samba beat, whether it was set by drums or waves or just a passerby, singing on the sidewalk. Infrequently, we roused ourselves from sun-drenched torpor to explore Rio, a city of magnificent and miserable extremes. The dragon-backed mountains that ring the beaches serve as the majestic if unsteady foundation for the tumble-down slums called favelas that precariously cling to their flanks. Those who can afford it live on the low ground, near Ipanema and Copacabana beaches. There, on the sand, some of Rio’s extremes meet. One group tans and swims, the other rents umbrellas and sells snacks. We did our part, watching the surf and

“

The dragon-backed mountains that ring the beaches serve as the majestic if unsteady foundation for the tumble-down slums called favelas that precariously cling to their flanks the passing show from under an umbrella, drinking iced coconut milk and snacking on Globo biscuits, which look like doughnuts made of styrofoam. For some reason they were saltily delicious and crunchy on the beach; when we ate them anywhere else they tasted like salted styrofoam. We didn’t want to spend our whole honeymoon in the middle of a big drunken party. So as Carnival approached, we left Rio. The sentiment was shared by some cariocas, apparently. When we told our hotel manager we were checking out for a week, he said, “Can I come with you?” We had made reservations at a pousada (a small inn) on Ilha Grande, about 160 kilometres south of Rio. Getting there involved three hours in a private bus and another hour by ferry. The words Ilha Grande are delicious in Portuguese – EEla GRANji, but they just mean Big Island. Until 10 years ago, it was home to a prison known as the Devil’s Cauldron and a small village where the prison employees and their families lived. Now it is my idea of paradise: a car-less isle with a few hotels and restaurants, big,

”

empty beaches, shady jungle trails and not much to do. Silke had spent many hours on the internet finding Pousada Asalem, and all that research had paid off. It was in an isolated spot in the jungle, a half-hour walk from the island’s only village, on a slope overlooking the bay. There was a main house, with a big veranda where meals were served. The six rooms were built into the side of the hill above. The pousada’s chefs served us meals of fresh fruit, eggs from the resident chickens, fish from the sea. Our suite had an airy loft, a giant yellow hammock and a palm-framed view of the bay. At night, samba from the Carnival parties in the village of Abraao drifted across the bay. On the day of Carnival, we walked into town to catch the parade. It consisted of a marching samba band of about 20 villagers followed by a troupe of 40 children in costumes followed by another 100 people shuffling along to the pounding drums and blasting horns. It lasted about a halfhour, everyone cheered and sang, and then it was over. It was perfect.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 77

A stage had been set up on the town square for a night of pop music and dancing for the young folk. We left before the real debauchery kicked in, although we heard music and shouting in the distance until after 3 a.m. At one point I heard what I thought might be gunfire. At breakfast the next day, Paolo, the manager of the pousada, told us we’d missed some excitement. “I was there watching from the second story of a bar,” he said. “A fight broke out. There was one police. He broke up the fight, but then the mother of one of the guys started biting him. Then that guy got mad because the police was hitting his mother. They both attacked him. Then the police pulled his gun and shot into the air, but they kept hitting on him. So he shot the guy in the foot. Then more police come and shoot pepper spray. I got some in my throat. It was a mess.” He told the story with some concern, which evaporated the minute the story ended. He never mentioned it again, and neither did anyone else. Still, the story echoed later in the day. We went on a hike through the jungle to a tiny beach, where we met an American woman named Bobbi Oleo, her Brazilian fiance and several of their friends. They were all from Sao Paolo, and like most of the other tourists on the island, they were refugees from the big Carnival celebrations in the cities. They invited us to join their group for lunch. “By now you’ve figured out that Brazilians are whimsical,” Oleo said. “They change plans very easily. They say they’re doing one thing and then do something else. That’s probably why they’re happy most of the time, even though things are difficult here. They live in the moment.” To that end she told us about the time she and her fiance were stuck in a traffic jam in Sao Paolo, on their way to a concert. A man came up to their car and robbed them at gunpoint. She was traumatized and wanted to go home, but Eduardo (the fiance) didn’t see why. “He didn’t want to let a little armed robbery ruin an evening of music.” Rio seemed a little tired and run-down when we returned. Pieces of paper, colorful feathers and sparkly pieces of what had been very small costumes littered the ground around the Arpoador Inn. The beach was just as we left it, and our favorite umbrella vendor welcomed us home to our lazy post by the sea. I did

78, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007

feel a small ghost of regret flitting through my mind. I missed Carnival in Rio: The ultimate samba celebration. There are huge samba clubs of 4,000 to 5,000 people that spend the whole year writing and perfecting a samba, making costumes and building a float for the big contest at the Sambodrome, where more than 100,000 people will join them in song. That night we consoled ourselves to a fine meal at a feijoada restaurant. Feijoada is one of Brazil’s distinctive dishes: a hearty black-bean stew that is a staple of Carnival time. Loaded with cured beef, spareribs and sausage, it’s remarkably heavy. As we were walking home, Silke

pondered, “How can people eat like this and then dance?” Not 10 minutes later, we saw a truck coming down Avenue Viera Souto, which fronts Ipanema beach. On top of the truck was a band. Twenty drummers marched behind it. A crowd of at least 200 dancers followed, doing the samba. The band played the same song, over and over, and as the waves of sound washed over us, our feet moved, our hips shook, and we sang even though we didn’t know what the words meant. Bean stew, the heaviness, the impending trip back to a cold, hard place – none of that even came to mind.

A traveler’s checklist for Brazil

AN EAR FOR BRAZIL Music pervades every aspect of life in Brazil; accordingly, the depth and breadth of recordings is rich. Here are a few starting points for an aural expedition. Luaka Bop/ Brazil Classics The CD series from David Byrne (former frontman of the Talking Heads) offers samples of many artists, styles and time periods. It is an irresistible invitation to the world of Brazilian music. Martinho da Vila This samba legend with a deep, melodic voice developed a reputation as a master composer and singer during a 40-year career. Marisa Monte The Brazilian pop diva dabbles in many styles. Universo ao Meu Redor, a recent release, is a passionate study of samba, even if it is too slick to satisfy old-school samba fans. Caetano Veloso Veloso – one of Brazil’s national treasures – has spent his remarkable career moving fluidly from one style to another with the only constant his signature, lilting voice. Jorge Ben Another groundbreaker, Ben merged funk and samba to create a sound all his own. “Africa Brasil” remains a classic of Brazilian popular music; my favorite Ben CD is A Tabua de Esmeralda.

RIO DE JANEIRO Explorer Amerigo Vespucci was better suited to naming things than he was to figuring out what they were. When the Portuguese ship he was piloting floated into Guanabara Bay on Jan. 1, 1502, Vespucci wrongly believed it was a river mouth. Thus, he dubbed the place the River of January, though there is no river. Now Rio (pronounced HEE-u in Portuguese) is home to 6 million cariocas (the preferred label for Rio-ites), with a laid-back attitude and culture that is unique even in Brazil. CRIME In Brazil, crushing poverty fuels crime in the big cities. Holdups and petty theft against tourists are not uncommon in Rio de Janeiro. Even welltraveled neighborhoods such as Lapa, where many of the liveliest nightclubs are found, are unsafe at night. Having a friend in Rio who knew taxi drivers and where to pick them up safely was invaluable. In daylight, tourist areas are generally safe. Nighttime requires more caution. Use taxis and avoid solo travel. The U.S. State Department consular information sheet is worth reading: travel.state.gov/travel. TWO BOOKS Don’t head to Brazil without a good guide. Lonely Planet’s Brazil guides are reliably comprehensive. If Rio is on the itinerary, read “Rio de Janeiro/Carnival Under Fire” by Ruy Castro, a true carioca. In 242 pages, he somehow manages to weave together all the disparate strands of Rio into something truly beautiful and melodic, like the city itself.

White sand curving into a sea of turquoise. Singing voices drifting through leaning palms.

Moonlit dinners over shimmering waters. The body and mind refreshed, sanity restored.

Until you work your magic again

QUDOS FV350

another year.

Visit: www.fijime.com or call 0800 3454 463 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 79

tasteLIFE

FOOD

Photography: Robson Oliveira

Let’s make sushi!

Eli Jameson is turning Japanese, he thinks he’s turning Japanese, he really thinks so

t a birthday party for one of my fiveyear-old’s friends earlier today I fell into conversation with another of the dads, himself an immigrant from Ireland who has been out here twenty years, and as it so often does amongst expats who left their home country as footloose and fancy-free bachelors only to wake up years or decades later to find themselves on the other side of the world married with kids, the talk fell to that old standby: “If you told me back then things would work out like this, I’d have told you to stop messing with the crack”.

80, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007

Much the same thing can be said about sushi. Think about it. If someone had told you twenty years ago, back in 1987, that eating raw fish would go from something possibly to be contemplated while stranded on a life raft at sea with no place to set a fire to an integral part of a trip to the shopping centre, well, you probably would have that person was a bit crazy as well. Yet where I live today one sees so many toddlers being pushed around in strollers chowing down on salmon and avocado rolls you would think the wrong side won the war.

When it comes to sushi, whether from a mall outlet, one of those conveyer belt joints that are becoming ever more ubiquitous, or at a high-end restaurant where one sits at the bar and hands one’s palate (and credit card) over to the sushi chef with that confident declaration, omakase (Japanese for “I hereby give you power of attorney to serve me whatever you like, and even if the fugu kills me I promise not to sue”), there is still a weird taboo against preparing it at home. Which is not as it should be. Regular readers of this column will know that one

of my pet hates is what might be called the creeping credentialism of the culinary arts, the tendency of chefs, especially at the highest end, to leave things out of recipes for you to figure out or otherwise add needless mystery to what are at the end of the day fairly basic physical and chemical processes. Certainly there is no doubt that those Japanese sushi chefs who spend years as apprentices just learning how to make rice are often phenomenal artisans who toil, often anonymously, to bring a bit of that transcendance to their customers in the same manner of those unknown craftsmen responsible for the marvelous detail on antique furniture, churches or other public buildings. But just as one can go to Italy and spend years learning how to make perfect pasta (one of the many projects I would undertake if I had five lifetimes) or muck about in one’s own kitchen with a relatively inexpensive machine and still come pretty damn close to the real thing, one can also with a little practice make creditably good sushi at home. The first and most important ingredient of sushi, of course, is the fish. And here, just as with other raw delights such as steak tartare (and here I’m afraid waggishly ordering one’s steak tartare “medium rare” in a restaurant has, like calling martinis “martoonis”, become profoundly unwaggish) quality and freshness is key. Although the potential for sushi is limited only by the variety of creatures in the oceans in the beginnings of one’s sushi chef career it is basics, and here I mean tuna and salmon. Develop a relationship with a good fish monger and tell him what you are after. In the case of salmon, fresh skinless, boneless filets are the thing; you can, if you are so inclined, deal with the skinning and de-boning yourself. Though be warned that this is a bit of a skill and in the wrong hands this operation can leave a piece of fish looking as if it was not landed with a hook or a net but with a round or two from a 30-ought-6. When you go to the fish market make sure you specify that you want “sushi grade” fish. And beware: some unscrupulous merchants treat their tuna steaks with carbon monoxide to make them look fresher and keep them looking brighter for longer. If you see tuna cuts that look to preternaturally pink, beware. The second key to successful sushi is the rice – not just the grains but how it is prepared. Sushi-style rice is now available in

“

Although the potential for sushi is limited only by the variety of creatures in the oceans in the beginnings of one’s sushi chef career it is basics, and here I mean tuna and salmon

most supermarkets, and like Arborio and carnaroli (the most popular rice varieties for making risotto) sushi rice is shortgrained and starchy, the better to hold together. But the sushi rice cannot be cooked on its own; it must be seasoned. Some people like to cook down Japanese rice wine vinegar with sugar and salt but I have found that commercial preparations work just as well. Similarly although I am happy to use the rice cooker to make up a batch of, say, glutinous rice to go along with a big Thai curry I prefer the control of stovetop cooking for sushi. Follow the directions on the packet and, when the rice is hot, add a tablespoon or so of your sushi seasoning to the rice for each cup and stir it through, fanning it cool. Once you’ve got your fish and rice you are ready to make basic nigiri-style sushi – that is the slab of fish on top of a bed of rice. Here it is important to get proportions right. Although there has been a fad in some places – most notably New York City – in recent years for gigantic pieces of sushi, authentically it deserves a more delicate treatment. In the edo-era Japan from whence the sort of sushi we are familiar with today originated sushi was meant to be a one-bite proposition. And interestingly it was also designed as a dish for people of modest means. Here a parallel can be drawn with oysters which for much of their modern culinary history have been food for the poor (though the wealthy enjoyed them as well) but are increasingly the province of pricier restaurants which charge extortionate prices for a half-dozen. To make a basic piece of nigiri sushi take a clump of rice and form it between your thumb and index finger. It should almost be the shape of a footy, though more squared off at the end. You will be surprised at first that it takes a bit more pressure to make this all come together. Take a slice of fish cut against the grain (and here your fish monger should be giving you pieces of fish that are intuitively easy to cut) and lay it on top, perhaps with a dab

”

of wasabi mustard for heat. Traditionally sushi is served in lots of two; odd numbers are considered bad luck. And when it comes time to dip it in the soy sauce it is traditionally correct to dip the fish side rather than the rice side, though this can rtake a bit of practice. Generally it is considered acceptable to knock a piece of sushi onto its side on the plate and pick it up thusly with chopsticks to better facilitate this motion without the fish and rice falling apart in the soy dish. Once you have mastered this technique it is time to move on to rolls. Packets of nori, or Japanese seaweed, are widely available (as are the bamboo mats necessary to roll them) and can be used to make all manner of creative maki. Generally the sheets available in supermarkets are just a little too large for a basic roll so a trim on one edge is necessary – but this all becomes apparent with practice. Lay down a thin coating of rice on a piece of nori, placed shiny-side down on a bamboo mat, and add a strip of toppings – say, salmon, thinly sliced avocado, perhaps a bit of wasabi. Roll it up, slice in half, and slice the resulting two pieces in thirds and – voila! – a sushi roll, just like they do it in town. These rolls can be eaten by hand – in fact just as with the Western sandwich they were invented as a snack for gamblers that wouldn’t get the fingers sticky – and can also be filled with any number of raw or cooked ingredients making them a wonderful snack at parties. The point of this essay is not to make you a sushi master overnight but rather to inspire you to give a try to something that you might not have otherwise. Once you’re a little comfortable with the techniques try hosting a sushi party. Get some fish, make pots of rice, and stock the fridge with Japanese beer or sake (which contrary to popular belief is often best served cold). Or get the kids involved and teach them how to make their own rolls. Unlike life with sushi one does not necessarily have to wait twenty years to go all sorts of interesting places.

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seeLIFE PAGES

My, what big teeth you have…

Michael Morrissey discovers crocodiles, powerful women and more INES OF MY SOUL By Isabel Allende Fourth Estate, $36.99

nes of my Soul is Allende’s tenth novel – and an excellent one it is too. Initially a fully paid up member of the Magic Realism school, she, like Louis de Bernieres, has to a large degree moved onto being a historical novelist sans the Irish tall story-style embellishments which characterise this highly influential manner of writing fiction extensively deployed by Latin American writers for several decades. Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, widely regarded as the world’s greatest living writer, is most famously associated with Magic Realism. While Allende is not quite in Marquez’s class, she is a very good writer indeed and this novel shows off her talents to great advantage. Magic Realism, richly imbued with what might be dubbed the Latin American voice, is characterised by narrative being overwhelmingly dominant over dialogue which becomes correspondingly sparse; a heavy Latinate style;

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highly colourful character contrasts and of course touches of wild exaggeration. In Ines of my Soul the exaggerations are minimal, and Magic Realism greatly diminished. Instead we have a rich surfeit of blood and thunder sixteenth century conquistadors armed with sharp swords and large doses of warrior spirit as they set about the brutal conquest of Chile. Blood lust, gold lust (as well as the usual fleshy variety) permeate this complex tale narrated by Ines Suarez, a passionate woman who loses a husband and gains a lover – the war hero Pedro de Valdivar, a lieutenant so to speak, of Francisco Pizarro, the most famous conquistador of them all. Ines, like the men who stride through these pages, is no lily-white lady herself. She is a swordswoman who beheads her enemies, and doesn’t seem overly bothered by the ruthless conquest of the local Indians and the unflinchingly stoic Mapuche – who do not break even under torture. I did not, as some hostile reviewers imagine, that Allende herself condones this behaviour but assume like all good fiction writers she is letting her story and

character speak for themselves with the voices of their time – accordingly, it is for us in more hopefully enlightened times to make a more strict moral judgment. The book is energetic and colourful throughout though at times I found myself wondering is every man so swashbuckling (ie tall, handsome, cruel, a great lover, an even greater swordsman, and always greedy for gold) – aren’t there cobblers and or cooks labouring away humbly? But this is after all the dashing world of the conquistadors and the violent world of sixteenth century Chile.

CROCODILE By Lynne Kelly Allen &Unwin, $39.99

hether through fear, sound survival instinct or meagre travel, I have led a crocodile-free existence. Reading this book – unlike a book on orangutans or dolphins – doesn’t make me pine for any personal encounters. The scaly monster, which may well be the factfounded basis for dragon legends, more

than lives up its reputation as a fearsome man-muncher. Some crocodile facts – there are fourteen species of crocodile, eight of alligator and caiman and one only of gharial. One of the India crocs is cutely named a mugger. The most recently discovered crocodile is the Philippine crocodile – in 1935. The most to be feared are the Australian fresh water crocodile affectionately nicknamed “freshies” and the Nile crocodile both of which have claimed many lives. The latter kills hundreds of people a year though Kelly points out there are 800 million people in Africa – and the hippo kills more. In general, people do not survive a crocodile attack but Val Plumwood survived three of the dreaded death rolls by an Australian freshwater crocodile in 1985. Some accounts of their ferocity have proved to be exaggerations – the tale that nearly a 1000 Japanese soldiers were eaten in Burma during the Second World War in a single night is a wild exaggeration spawned of wartime wishful thinking. The crocodile is a remarkable animal. It can advance on prey without causing a ripple, and their blood’s unique chemistry enables it to utilise more oxygen from a breath of air than any other animal; it is the only animal that has actively controlled muscular valves in its heart. Its incredible immune system means that even serious gashes heal in a few days due to an antibiotic in their blood called “crocodillin” – currently the object of research to see if we humans can befit from it – hopefully it will not turn our skins scaly. (And just to confuse, crocodiles are often referred to as crocodilians.) Their toughness is legendary. Captain Lort Stokes of the Beagle wrote, “It was not before he had received six balls in the head that he consented to be killed”. Though the alligator is a much more peaceful beast than the crocodile, attacks have increased because people feed them – they then begin to associate food with human beings and act accordingly. Though reputedly you can keep a crocodile’s jaws shut with a strong rubber band (something I’m not about to test any time soon), it takes an almighty amount of force to open them once they are closed shut. This is a lovely and well-informed book with inside covers appropriately rendered in a crocodile skin motif plus some startling art illustrations ranging from the ancient Egyptians to contemporary

Aborigine showing the crocodile and humans have been acquainted for thousands of years. An excellent gift for reptile lovers – and one that won’t bite.

IN THE NAME OF HONOUR By Mukhtar Mai Virago, $34.99

ukhtar Mai’s tale is a harrowing but ultimately heroic one. In the savage world of Pakistan tribal custom in which she was raised, western notions of justice do not figure. In this brutal world, one member of a family can be punished for the crimes of another. Standards of proof are low or difficult to impossible. A woman who is raped, for instance, needs the testimony of four honest Muslim men and, as Mai ironically points out, sometimes – as in her case – the only four such witnesses are the very ones who perpetrated the deed! And what criminal is going to testify against himself? Mai’s living nightmare began when her younger brother aged but twelve was accused of flirting, then of raping Salma, “a rather wild young woman in her twenties”. His punishment was to be kidnapped, beaten and sodomised – for merely talking! If that were not enough, Mai was abducted and then systematically raped by four men. In her society, it was expected that through feelings of shame, she would commit suicide. Instead, her anger compelled her to live and seek justice. Sometimes “shamed” women are mutilated – their noses cut off – at least Mai was spared this barbarity. In her rage, Mai contemplated hiring hitmen to kill her attackers or buying a gun herself but in her society women have no money. Instead she chose to seek justice through the legal system. Fortunately, the judge who heard her story was fair, impartial and patient. She describes him as “a distinguished man, very polite, and the first official to call for an extra chair so that I may sit down”. Whenever she became agitated he told her to calm down, take her time, have a sip of water. Thus gradually was her story revealed. Over and over again, Mai makes the point that the fact she was illiterate made her vulnerable to manipulation. A standard technique was for the police to write the “confession” or statement the way it suited them and for the non-literate woman to affix her thumb print.

Obviously the woman in question is not accurately aware of the content of what she is ‘signing’. Luckily, Mai’s case was taken up by the media and Amnesty International also became aware of it. The course of justice was not smooth. Initially,14 men were arrested, six condemned to death, eight set free. Then five were acquitted. Finally, after the intervention of the Prime Minister, the men were re-arrested together with the originally freed eight. Thus at the conclusion of the book justice appears to have won out – no easy task in her country. Mai ends her book with this plea: “.... the real question my country must ask itself is, if the honour of men lies in women, why do men want to rape or kill that honour?”

LIMERICKS: THE OAKLEY COLLECTION By John Bentley Polygraphia, $25

ohn Bentley is already a noted short story writer of witty complex stories deploying a neo-Joycean playfulness with language accompanied by learned footnotes giving his oeuvre a late modernist ambiance. In addition, he is a noted limerickist and this collection has numerous amusing example of the genre. The limerick is a five-line poem with two recurring rhymes in an aabba formation. Though it has been most famously associated with Edward Lear – who write 212 of them and is known as the poet laureate of the genre – it dates back to ancient Greek times. There are also several examples in the plays of Shakespeare. Other distinguished writers such as Tennyson, Swinburne, Kipling, and Robert Louis Stevenson have seasoned the mix. The modern limerick, like the short story invented by Poe, often has a twist or punch in the last line – and bawdy or ribald examples are legion. Many of us have probably heard, over a few pints, bawdy variations of the man from Nantucket. The form allows for play with language, deliberate misspellings, split line typography to achieve unlikely rhymes and so forth. Bentley’s limericks range far and wide from the local to overseas, with learned references from history, literature and psychology: “The Magic Flute takes more time that it warrants,”

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Said Bruno (the muso and thespian) Lawrence, Whose company, Blerta Never performed “Zauberflote” I believe Freud would explain his abhorrence. And in more satirical vein: Said J Hunt, “There’s a current malpractice To address me, on e-mail or faxes, In a manner quite sinister, As a Cabernet minister! Be assured, when I order a cab, it’s a taxi!” In naughtier bawdier vein – and more salty examples can be therein located – is this item: There was an old fellow from Clapham Had bollocks so low he could trap ‘em By crossing his knees Though a cough, frat or sneeze, Or patellar reflex would un-wrap ‘em. In addition, there are a goodly number of paintings and line drawings which add an attractive visual flavour to the combination – Bravo John Bentley!

NEW ZEALAND AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN Edited by Stephen Levine Victoria University Press, $35

his intriguing book is a collection of 14 essays by leading academic historians speculating on alternative pathways for New Zealand history. Normally the zone of fiction writers – consider for example the large number of works on the topic of Germany winning the war – here the new ‘discipline” of counterfactual history is debated and defended. While some historians (though none are named) are not happy with this type of speculation, the historians contributing here have gleefully taken part and cooked up multiple versions of our possible pasts. Time travel by historians instead of fictioneers is a pleasing novelty though at times the ideas might have enjoyed a more dramatic exploration by the latter instead of the former. Still, this is a brave and in the main, successful attempt by customarily fusty academics to plumb alternative futures, or should I say alternative pasts. As a World World Two freak, I found the alternative of Japan invading New Zealand by leading war historian Ian McGibbon the most adrenalin-raising and the notion of Nelson becoming the capital of New Zealand by editor Stephen Levine the least interesting (sorry Stephen). McGibbon’s

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exploration has Japan invading Wellington and occupying the central part of the country. As many as 6 atomic bombs instead of the historic two are needed to bring about eventual defeat in 1946. Giselle Byrnes asks “What if the Treaty of Waitangi had not been signed on 6 February 1840?” and concludes that the most likely outcome is that “the British would have annexed only those areas that British settlers had occupied leaving Maori with their autonomy intact”. A similar speculation – looking at the notion of Maori not being made British subjects in 1840 – leads to the startling conclusion that the wars of the 1860s could have been avoided. Erik Olssen looks at the possibility that strikers in the 1913 Waihi strike – New Zealand’s largest – succeeded and concludes that New Zealand would have moved more sharply to the Left and the Labour Party would never have been founded in 1916 – tough luck Helen! Donald Anderson has several startling variations to offer – Churchill killed in the Boer War so no invasion of the Dardanelles, no entry of Turkey into the First World War so no glorious defeat at Gallipoli. And a chapter in a similar vein by Denis McLean has Prime Minister Savage reversing his famous words thus: “Where she goes, we cannot blindly go; where she stands, we do not find cause to stand”. Heresy! John Wilson suggests that Muldoon Think Big projects may have failed in the late 1970s due to an unexpected drop in oil prices but the current oil crisis may force us to re-examine this philosophy. Other topics covered include speculation over the All Blacks not winning the final test in 1981, Ruth Richardson not delivering the mother of all budgets and Winston Peters not going with Labour in 1996. To my mind the obvious omission from this collection is What if the Spaniards Had Discovered New Zealand Before the Dutch and the British? The notion has been investigated by several authors including Robert Langdon, Roger Herve, Ross Wiseman and K.L. Howe and many others including my own fictional account in Paradise to Come. It will be fascinating to see what other professional historians of the non-counterfactual variety make of this collection of essays by their more fearless – or should that be reckless? – colleagues.

To celebrate 21 years of Sceptre, Hachette is reissuing 21 of their favourite titles with bold new covers The titles which include Booker, Whitbread and Goncourt prize winners are as follows: Schindler’s Ark -Thomas Keneally Augustus – Allan Massie The Mysteries of Pittsburgh – Michael Chabon Restoration – Rose Tremain Docherty – William McIlvanny Le Testament Francais – Andrei Makine Ingenious Pain – Andrew Miller Peter Cook: A Biography – Harry Thompson Cold Mountain – Charles Frazier Ghostwritten – David Mitchell The Long Firm – Jake Arnott The Soldier’s Return – Melvyn Bragg Nathaniel’s Nutmeg – Giles Milton Fred and Edie – Jill Dawson Barcelona Plates – Alexei Sayle McCarthy’s Bar – Pete McCarthy Carter Beats the Devil – Glen David Gold Colour – Victoria Finlay White Lightning – Justin Cartwright What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt Heavier than Heaven: A biography of Kurt Cobain – Charles R. Cross To help celebrate Sceptre’s 21st Birthday, Investigate’s book column is running a competition. Name your Most Admired/Favourite book first published in the last 100 years and why, in 50 words. Prizes will be awarded on the basis of the worth of the book nominated and the originality and freshness of your answer. First prize winner receives three titles of their choice. Runner Up receives two titles. Third place receives one title. Please send your reply to: books@investigatemagazine.tv by the end of May 2007. Results will be published in the July column.

SPORT WATCH SERIES

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 85

seeLIFE MUSIC

Noteable tunes

Chris Philpott finds pleasure in an eclectic mix The Mamaku Project Karekare

Bloc Party A Weekend In The City

ARTIST unknown The Good, The Bad and The Queen

n a market flooded with dub-infused funk and reggae albums, it is a truly unique album which will make you sit up and really take notice. So imagine, if you will, the speed at which I sat up upon the introduction of an accordion to the intro to the second track. Reconciling the influences from founding members Tui Mamaki and Monsieur Escargot’s French and Kiwi upbringings, The Mamaku Project have inadvertently fashioned a completely new style (Friwi?) by incorporating traditional French sounds, influences and movements into an otherwise typically Kiwi groove-dub album. Comprised of equal parts Fat Freddys Drop and Allo Allo, the result is music the way it is truly meant to be: cutting edge and totally unpredictable. Karekare takes the listener on a journey from New Zealand to France and back, while remaining hip and relevant throughout. Front woman Mamaki’s vocal work is also deserving of mention – reaching to the centre of her very being to pull out notes ranging from the impossibly deep to the upper registers, Mamaki absolutely pours herself into every track. Packed with highlights, including a brilliant re-imagining of the classic “Feeling Good”, this needs to be in your CD player this summer!

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inally taking its place among the most anticipated albums around, Bloc Party emerge with A Weekend In The City, the follow-up to debut album Silent Alarm, produced by British music legend Jacknife Lee. On listening to the album the first thing that really stands out, without immediately being able to put my finger on it, is that something just sounds inherently different in the band’s sound. Not to be misunderstood, let me say that Bloc Party haven’t sacrificed anything of what makes them Bloc Party. Singer Kele Okereke still stands out among the current crop of British singers, and this album quickly moves from faster, more upbeat rock pieces like “Song for Clay” to sweeping, minimalist sounding ballads like “Uniform”, and back again, which is similar in progression to their first album. But throughout the 11 track length of A Weekend In The City, throughout both the ballads and the rockier tracks, there is an underlying vibe bordering on pop or even electronica music, which is more like what I would expect from Lee. Slightly overlaid beats and synth pieces – most noticeably on first single “The Prayer” – fade in and out providing the lifeblood of this great album.

n the “what on earth will he do next” basket this month comes this brainchild of the increasingly bizarre ex-Blur/ Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn. Having gathered the cream of the crop to assist, including ex-Clash bassist Paul Simonon, ex-Verve guitarist Simon Tong and uber-producer Danger Mouse, of Gnarls Barkley fame, The Good, The Bad and The Queen is a step in a different direction, but is essentially an elaborate concept album dealing with the rigours of life in present day London. Sounding more like Gorillaz than Blur, with a plethora of sound effects and strange atmospheric noises filling up the large areas of space between the minimal instrument work, this release ends up falling somewhere between indie, electronica and pop – which is about where Albarn himself resides. The biggest surprise is that it totally works – The Good, The Bad and The Queen is an experimental and eclectic mix, but it is entertaining, from the earthy guitar intro to opener “History Song” to the final hammered piano notes of the title track, as Albarn’s signature monotonous vocal work carries the album from beginning to end. Perhaps the best compliment is that there is nothing else on the market that sounds like it.

because nothing is more special than time

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Astina Ambassador Miss Universe New Zealand Elizabeth Gray wears Astina. REF #4602.3.86 RRP $135.

seeLIFE MOVIES

Nice tries, but…

Two movies that should have worked, judge for yourself The Good German Rated: M Starring: Cate Blanchett, George Clooney, Tobey Maguire, Beau Bridges, Tony Curran Directed by: Steven Soderbergh 108 minutes

f early music ensembles can claim authenticity by playing on antique instruments, why shouldn’t a moviemaker create a World War II-era mystery with the equipment and techniques of the time? Restlessly experimental director Steven Soderbergh has done just that in The Good German, using the lenses, blackand-white film stock, editing rhythms and sound recording apparatus of 1945. As an esthetic experiment, it’s entertaining, but the vintage mannerisms don’t sharpen the impact of this romantic murder mystery. The film pits my inner movie geek, who loves its nods to The Third Man and neorealist cinema, against my inner popcorn junkie, who just wants some action, dammit. The film hangs out red herrings aplenty, beginning with a setup that leads us to believe that the main charac-

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ter will be Cpl. Tulley (Tobey Maguire), a genially corrupt driver for the occupying American army’s Berlin motor pool. The bomb-flattened city is the world capital of vice and racketeering, and Tulley, a born thug, is up to his elbows in felonies. He has a hand in everyone’s pocket, including that of his new passenger Jake Geismar (George Clooney). A war correspondent covering the Allies’ division of postwar Europe at the Potsdam Conference, Geismar is tenaciously pursuing a private story. Stalin, Churchill and Truman smile for the newsreel cameras, but as Geismar comes to realize, they are actually locked in a power struggle that will shape the next 50 years. Geismar’s ex-lover Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett) is implicated in that diplomatic wrangle. The Americans and Russians are eager to locate Lena’s husband, an insignificant Nazi scientist whom she claims is dead. Geismar discovers a cash-laden corpse outside the Potsdam conference center, and the deeper he drills, the murkier things get. As the film proceeds, Soderbergh realigns its point of view with each of the stars in turn, the shifting perspective adding to the mystery of the proceedings and the untrustworthiness of

the morally compromised characters (the film’s very title echoes with contradictory meanings). The central struggle of the drama swings from Americans and Russians seeking German rocket scientists for the next arms race, and toward military lawyers who might gum up those plans with troublesome war crimes trials. Maguire is an eye-opener as the opportunistic G.I., a homespun creep who rents out his German girlfriend by the hour and is not above thrashing a legless war casualty when the mood strikes him. Clooney doesn’t fare as well. His classic good looks are right for the part, but he lacks the bitter Bogart-flavored nobility that the character requires. As the mystery woman, Blanchett eerily evokes Marlene Dietrich. Stylish in her ‘40s fashions but war-weary, she looks like a million bucks in used bills. The finale, a downbeat twist on Casablanca’s airfield scene, ends on a confessional note so chilling it undercuts any sympathy we could harbor for the surviving characters. The Good German cannibalizes the cool, cynical look of those great old movies, but it’s too spiritually vacant to duplicate their soul. Reviewed by Colin Covert

Freedom Writers Rated: M Starring: Hilary Swank, Patrick Dempsey, Scott Glenn, Imelda Staunton Directed by: Richard LaGravenese 123 minutes

he most startling moment in Freedom Writers, based on an inspiring true story about at-risk students who redeem themselves through writing, comes not as a result of gang violence but of shocking ignorance. Rookie English teacher Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank), who has just intercepted an ugly racial caricature, compares the drawing to German propaganda during the Holocaust. A young punk named Tito raises his hand and asks her what the Holocaust is.

Turns out most of this multiracial freshman class at Wilson High in Long Beach, Calif., knows about as much as Tito (except for the lone white kid, whose lessthan-gritty lifestyle is mocked more than a few times). It’s a devastating moment to the idealistic young teacher, one that should define and shape the movie into another stand-up-and-cheer entry in the Real Heroic Teacher genre along with Stand and Deliver and Lean on Me. But Freedom Writers is prone to throwing in unnecessary plot developments, so it never quite succeeds as anything more than Dangerous Minds Redux. It tells a great story in a predictable way, drumming up gangsta cliches and dragging every time Gruwell steps out of the classroom. Her progressively shaky marriage to an unambitious guy (Patrick Dempsey, more McSulky than McDreamy here) is

uninteresting, as is her relationship with her skeptical father (Scott Glenn). And her disapproving colleagues are so comically, broadly drawn, they seem more evil than any of the gang members. Swank, all lips and wounded eyes, seems impossibly naive upon heading into an inner-city school just two years after the Los Angeles riots. And while you applaud her decision not to lob tear gas into her rowdy classroom on the first day – which, quite frankly, seems a sensible option – you have to wonder whether these struggling kids would acquiesce so quickly once she suggested they write down their feelings. You also might question why they don’t appear to attend classes in science, math, history, social studies or even P.E. In the world of Freedom Writers, it appears, writing is not only everything but also the only thing. Reviewed by Connie Ogle INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 89

seeLIFE DVDs

A Kiwi film with real heart

Ian Wishart talks to Toa Fraser about the DVD release of No.2 NO. 2 Starring: Ruby Dee, Tuva Novotny, Mia Blake, Taungaroa Emile, Rene Naufahu Directed by: Toa Fraser PG, 105 minutes

hen you watch Toa Fraser’s acclaimed movie, No. 2, you’ll find it quickly creeps up on you and warmly embraces you. The film, which picked up a major award at last year’s Sundance Festival after being selected by Robert Redford for entry, is about family, and our growing disconnect with our pasts. “I guess, my family’s grown up in Mt Roskill for the last 50 years so it was a personal story I suppose,” says Toa Fraser. “The grandmother of the film was very similar to my grandmother, and the family in the film are very similar to my family. “Part of the thing of making the movie was we had a sort of nostalgic sense, because of course the motorway is going through there now and the changing face

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of the neighbourhood is a considerable thing. I grew up in England, my dad grew up in Mt Roskill but he moved to England in the sixties and talked about Mt Roskill in very nostalgic terms about those parties that started at 9.30 in the morning and ended 48 hours later, very much part of his lifestyle.” Black American actress Ruby Dee plays the matriarchal Fijian grandmother looking to name an heir and a new leader of the family as her passing nears. And yet, a back yard in suburban Auckland is a far cry from the bures of home and the tropical life she once led. So in a sense, the movie not only bridges a generation gap, but a physical translocation as well. “In the 21st century it’s really easy for us not to recognize as much of the past as we perhaps should,” agrees Fraser, “and certainly No. 2 is a story about community, and family. And it is certainly a regret of mine that I didn’t have as close a relationship with my grandmother as perhaps I would have if I had been born 50 years ago.”

That cultural disconnect – the “that was OK in Fiji but not here, not now” kind of attitude, can be seen in the rite of passage event where Nanna demands that her grandsons find and kill a pig in the back yard for a feast. Like, how many of us citified folk these days would have the first clue? “How to kill a piece of pork?” laughs Fraser. “It’s interesting, actually. My brother, sister and myself were all born in England, and my sister is working for MSF, Medecins Sans Frontieres, in Africa at the moment. She killed her first goat yesterday and cooked it in a curry, and she was relating that to me!” With the family set in the movie as “Fijian”, yet cast with a bunch of suspiciously Maori and Polynesian faces, the aforementioned American Ruby Dee and Swedish actress Tuva Novotny to boot, I have to ask Fraser the obvious: “Did you have a single Fijian in there?” He cackles. “That’s quite a controversial question,

Ian. I’m gonna answer it though. My family is very much from a mixed race background in Fiji anyway. The way we use the word Fijian in New Zealand is not the same way we use it in Fiji. It’s quite a specific term in Fiji for meaning ‘ethnic Fijian’ – you have to be on a book, a register, to be able to call yourself a Fijian. Whereas my family comes from a mixed race background, my cousins are all Samoan, Tongan, my daughter is Maori, my wife is Maori and that’s the way we ended up casting the movie, sort of a panPacific background.” The warm international response to what is effectively a universal story told through Pacific eyes has opened many new doors for Fraser, but for now it is theatre work that holds his attention. ““I’m really getting back to my roots, doing a bit of theatre at the moment, that’s what I’m passionate about doing, I guess partly because film takes so long. I’m doing a new show with Don McGlashan which is coming out in May or June this year. I’m doing a re-write on my first play, which they’re going to do at the Silo Theatre in April or May I think, and apart from that I’m doing a whole bunch of screenplays for the New Zealand Film Commission.

The Departed Starring: Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg Directed by: Martin Scorsese R (violence, sex, nudity, profanity, drugs, adult themes) 151 minutes

reed from iconic figures and weighty themes – like the paranoid media titan Howard Hughes in The Aviator and the early-days American ethnic loathing in Gangs of New York – Martin Scorsese, in The Departed, gets to riff and rock. And the audience gets a huge, bloody, profane entertainment in the bargain. A good cop/bad cop genre pic inspired by an over-the-top Hong Kong title called Infernal Affairs, The Departed marks the veteran New York filmmaker’s first foray to Boston. Yes, there are mobsters here, and punk criminals, high-priced hookers and rogue police, but they speak a little different than they do in Mean Streets and GoodFellas. The culture is Irish American,

not Italian American, and the scenery, from the gold-domed capital to the glass condos on the bay, is cast in a different light. Like Woody Allen moving his operation from Manhattan to London, Scorsese’s trip a couple of hundred miles northeast seems to have a restorative effect. The Departed, with its mega-testosteroned cast – Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Alec Baldwin, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone (and yes, there’s a girl – Vera Farmiga) – wheels and spins, swoops and roars. It’s a movie with a pulse. Sometimes, it flies off the chart. Damon, a native Beantowner, plays Colin Sullivan, a Catholic altar boy who is befriended at an early age by the local crimelord, Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). A father figure and a killer, Frank watches proudly as young Colin goes to school, grows up and becomes a star detective in the Massachusetts State Police. An ace cop, Sullivan’s loyalty nonetheless lies with Frank – and “lies” is the operative word. As a highly positioned mole in the department, Damon’s character is living a double life, reporting every move the cops make back to their No. 1 target: Costello. On the flip side, there’s Billy Costigan (DiCaprio), who goes through the Police Academy and then goes undercover – way deep – in Costello’s crime clan. Costigan, fierce, wiry and occasionally wearing a wire, works for the straight-arrow Boston cop Oliver Queenan (Sheen). Only one other guy inside the force – the gruff, unlovable Dignam (Boston native Wahlberg, accented-up), a guy with a ferocious bark and a truly scary hairpiece – knows whose side Costigan is on. To everybody else, he’s an Academy dropout, a tattooed thug who made his way into Costello’s ranks via brutal barfights and in-your-face drug deals. The Departed, then, traces these two trajectories – Sullivan’s and Costigan’s – as they intersect, with all the ugly, double-crossing business, the paranoia and rage and jumpout-of-your-seat firefights, that ensue. The cast, to the man (and the smartly seductive Farmiga, playing a psychiatrist), moves with gusto, devouring William Monahan’s brisk script with relish – and shots of whiskey with beer chasers. Baldwin is great as a fast-talking fed, Ray Winstone is ice-cool and scruffy as Costello’s right-hand man, and it’s great

“

Like Miami Vice (and The Departed is far better), the cops – and crooks – wield more flip-top mobiles and Blackberries than they do weapons

”

seeing Sheen being un-presidential again. And Nicholson? He’s smirking, goofy and doing shtick, and he practically grows whiskers for his rat speech – “I smell a rat,” he snivels. But the old star, like his old director, appears stoked by the rollicking unpretentiousness, and un-P.C.-ness, of the material. (Nasty swipes are taken at multiple ethnicities and at people of various religions and sexual persuasions.) If there’s a gripe to be griped about The Departed, it’s the plot’s over-reliance on cell phones and text-message technology. Like Miami Vice (and The Departed is far better), the cops – and crooks – wield more fliptop mobiles and Blackberries than they do weapons. The big shoot-out ending, in fact, set around a dark dockside warehouse, could not have happened without one character cell-phoning another. Turn `em off, I say. But maybe that’s just a sign of the times – and the chimes. In every other way, Scorsese and company deliver the goods, with bullets flying. Reviewed by Steven Rea

THE MAORI QUEEN 1931-2006 G, 196 minutes

VNZ has repackaged the live funeral service for Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu for the home DVD market, and it’s a keeper. Anyone who watched the coverage that day could not help but be impressed and moved at the passing of this iconic Maori figure and the sense of history involved. The inclusion of a concert in May last year at Turangawaewae Marae, marking Dame Te Ata’s 40th year as Maori Queen, and archival footage, makes this DVD a keeper. Reviewed by Ian Wishart

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TOYBOX RAYGLASS 730

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One of the things many of us aspire to, New Zealand being a marine nation and all that, is recreational boat ownership. On more than a few occasions Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve perused the boats for sale columns wistfully, remembering my own childhood summers on the Hauraki Gulf, whizzing out to deserted islands with the cousins, snorkeling for crays in secluded bays. But frankly, the hassle of storing a boat, maintaining a boat, and paying vast sums of dosh for something you might only use a few weeks a year, seemed like far too much trouble. So when the team at Ownaship.co.nz got in touch with Investigate recently, I was struck by what a mindnumbingly fantastic idea they had: timeshare for boats. By purchasing a 10% stake in a boat from just a little over $13,000, you get guaranteed usage rights throughout the year, including during the peak summer period, without having to tow the boat home, maintain it or do anything else but enjoy it. I am now sorely tempted. My own preference is the Rayglass 730 Legend, pictured. Check out the website for more information, www.ownaship.co.nz

Looking for a serious performance sportscar to enjoy during the Indian summer? The 2007 Lotus Elise S fits the bill nicely, offering blistering 0-100 times of 6.1 seconds (and even faster for the Elise R variant) which, compared to 7.9 seconds for a Mazda MX5, gives you some idea of Eliseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to overtake swiftly and get back in the lane sooner. Powered by a 1.8 litre engine, the new Elise achieves a planet-friendly 34 mpg and, like all Lotuses, is a pleasure to drive. Lotus, after all, is the engineering house other car manufacturers turn to for handling and performance boosts. www.lotuscars.net.nz for more details

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Naturally Speaking 9

Dragon’s Naturally Speaking 9 is one of those products that, like the Arc Wireless Freedom boost antenna for mobile phones and laptops we reviewed last summer, is just going off like a rocket. In Dragon’s case we’ve now been using it for three months, and coming to rely on it more each week. The reason is simple: the latest incarnation delivers dictation at real time speaking speeds, thanks to the software’s ability to make the most out of the modern processor chips. It’s uncannily accurate. But the reason for its appearance in Toybox is simple – we’ve had more unprompted feedback about that product since reviewing it two months ago than any other item we’ve reviewed. There is clearly a level of interest, and we’ve asked Mistral Software to allow us to review a few more of their products as a result. The latest one in the door is the new Scansoft PDF converter 4, which amazingly will not only convert documents to PDF and vice versa, but convert PDF’s into audio files that you can listen to on your iPod, computer or smartphone. We’ll keep you posted on that one. For more information, see www.mistralsoftware.co.nz

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Cruzer™ Titanium is an extremely rugged and smart USB flash drive. It is built with Liquidmetal® casing that is crush-resistant to over 2,000 lbs. Cruzer Titanium also includes U3 smart™ technology. Co-Invented by SanDisk, U3 technology gives you the ability to carry your files AND your software on a secure USB drive. You can have your wallpaper, preferences, favorites, profiles, and more – everything you need for a familiar computing experience on any PC, wherever you go. IncludesSkype™exclusivelyonallCruzerMicroand Cruzer Titanium USB flash drives. Make voice and video calls from PC to PC anywhere in the world. Cruzer Titanium allows you to easily store key documents, pictures, music & video clips and transfer them to another computer with a USB port. New retractable USB port eliminates the need for caps and protects your USB connector. Visit www.sandisk.com

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Want to watch last night’s episode of Lost while riding the bus to work? How about catching Grey’s Anatomy on your lunch break in the park? Thanks to RoverTv, now you can! RoverTv, is the world’s first truly pocket-sized mobile media player that records directly from television, DVR, DVD, VCR, CD or computers (Mac and PCs) for digital, high resolution color playback anytime, anywhere. With unlimited external memory, RoverTv packs a 4-inch color screen with 480 x 272 resolution into an ultra lightweight 5oz package that is powered by a rechargeable, built-in lithium ion battery that lasts for a minimum of six full hours of video viewing – that’s two full-length movies and a few sitcoms for good measure. Visit www.rovertv.com

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, April 2007, 93

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LAST WORD

A worldwide web of hate

The controversy over the CYFSWATCH blogsite in New Zealand has parallels in the US, as Angela Rozas notes

orsehater.blogspot.com, ihateclowns. com, ihatestarbucks.com, ihatemen. com, ihatewomen.com. Hate is big on the Internet. Web sites, bloggers, and, worst of all, dreaded hate email. In this e-world where Web sites can be set up in minutes, where mass mail of any variety can be sent with a single click and anonymity is all but assured, it is just too easy to spread hate.

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Type the word “hate” into Google and you get more than 200 million hits. Among the top 100 were those Web sites mentioned above. As fast as you can say “High School Musical is great,” there is somebody somewhere ready to make a Web site or a blog entry about how much it reeks. And then folks with silly blogging names such as “Mr. Vixen” and “Miffed”

write about how much they hate your idea or think you’re an idiot and so on and so on, until nobody can remember what the point of the post was in the first place. Bile begets bile. Some Web sites will even spread your message of hate – for a price, of course. Pay $5 and one site will send an anonymous note to the person you hate, saying someone hates them. How did we get here? In the past, if you hated, say, your dry cleaner, maybe you wrote a letter, or even protested outside their door. If you were particularly industrious, you might even paper your neighborhood with fliers. But today, one Web site, one string of responses on a blog, can reach thousands – maybe millions – instantly. On ihatewomen.com, posters can write anything they like about how terrible women are, and its creator, Slate McDorman, won’t censor it, as long as there are no threats or personal information – addresses or Social Security numbers, for example. McDorman, a 31-year-old law student in Mentone, Ala., started the site and a counterpart, ihatemen.com, in 1998 after a rant session with a female co-worker about their awful exes. After a series of female Web masters for the ihatemen. com site – including the ex-girlfriend who first inspired the ihatewomen site – McDorman now runs both sites. Like many of the hate sites, McDorman’s sites feature forums for public comment – the most popular feature – stories about bad women, quotes, music and links. McDorman says the sites are an outlet for people who are angry or frustrated about women, but they also are comedy. “It’s a joke. People seem to have a hard time getting that,” he said. “How can you hate half the human race? It’s just humor and sarcasm. I’ve put it on there somewhere that if you don’t get the sarcasm, then you probably won’t get the rest of the site and you should just move on.” McDorman’s intent aside, there’s still plenty of vitriol on his sites. Take this recent post (copied verbatim): “I find that women or a bunch of evil, arrogant, stubborn, pigheaded, loud, controlling, manipulative, complaining, ungreatful, disloyal, backstabbing, ucooperative, argumentative, coldblooded distrustful, untrustworthy, greedy, spiteful ...” In a recent Salon.com article about the

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12 years after I opened my first e-mail account, I have grown weary of the hate littering our e-world. Perhaps it’s time we start policing ourselves. No more hate messages by anonymous posters. Every posting should require a name, address and telephone number. That information could be shielded from public view, and though some people might make up names and phone numbers, the requirement for submitting them might reduce the number of hatefilled messages left online. As a reporter, I doubt there’s anything I can do to keep the hate mail out of my inbox. But I’m not sure I’d want to anyway. I occasionally enjoy reading how ignorant some of my detractors can be, right down to the reckless spelling and grammar.

INVECTIVE ON THE INTERNET

growth of hate mail and hate messaging on blogs and the danger to free discourse, writer Gary Kamiya cited the Internet’s ease and the improvement in the Internet’s technology as among the reasons hate messaging is growing. Before the Internet, if a reader wanted to respond to something in a newspaper or a magazine, he or she might send a letter. But then it became an e-mail. And now, with the demand for instant news, the readers of many sites can post their comments directly to the site. Some sites claim that messages are removed if they are obscene or if they include personal attacks. But the filters we’re putting in place to protect against hate messaging don’t seem to be working. Consider the caustic messages left for a friend of mine after she wrote a piece for the Philadelphia Inquirer about supporting the New Orleans Saints during the playoffs. Readers could immediately post feedback on the Inquirer’s site. And post they did. Eagles fans told her she should have drowned in New Orleans, that she should kill herself, that if she ever showed her face to them, she’d get her behind kicked. And who took responsibility for these horrid comments? Nobody. They were

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nearly all anonymous. And hours after they were posted, despite being flagged (by me) as offensive, they remained. Kamiya questions whether all of this instant responding is leading to dumber discussions. Perhaps people with constructive thoughts and good ideas are being pushed away from responding for fear of being lumped in with the clutter of meaningless meanness. Even the hate sites get hate messages. McDorman keeps a page for the particularly caustic hate e-mails he gets at ihatewomen.com. He says he gets one intelligent comment for every three silly posts to his site. But he doesn’t believe that his site and the Internet promote hate; they just reflect society. “I don’t see how my site could really make people hate the other gender any more than they already do,” he said. “Whatever you see on the Internet and how the Internet has emerged in its content is just a mirror of what people are doing in the real world.” But maybe that mirror is getting a bit too dirty. The Internet was supposed to revolutionize the way we communicate: information at our fingertips, global discourse, every man’s opinion could be heard. But

Here are excerpts of the vitriol posted on some of the hate Web sites: “I do not fear clowns. Really. I don’t. They are just not nice people. They scare little kids, they cause neurosis in some adults, they have big floppy feet, they try to fit too many of their kind in a car, I could go on and on.” Ihateclowns.com “Starbucks is spreading across the world like a virus, infecting cultures with their formula of what a coffee shop should be.” Ihatestarbucks.com “We all know that men are the kings of annoying games. Who else gets continuous entertainment from Noisy Bodily Functions Games? Who else could live off of beer and Sega (or Nintendo, or PlayStation)? Who else can scan every channel on the TV faster than the FCC could? Who? Men that’s who.” Ihatemen.com “It has often been claimed that God is a woman, but to my knowledge no one has ever claimed that the Devil is a woman and really meant it. So I will.” Ihatewomen.com “I am shaking right now because I hate horses so much.” Horsehater.blogspot.com